PRAIRIES AND THEIR TREELESSNESS. 271 



risen from the tombs of the preceding epoch. And not 

 alone around the borders of the widened lake, but upon 

 every island knoll which raised its head above the denud- 

 ing waters. This encircling forest and these isolated island 

 clumps still stood and flourished when at length the lake 

 receded. 



No turf carpeted the abandoned lake-bottom. No oak, 

 or beech, or pine raised its head through the covering of 

 ]ake-slime which separated the slumbering-place of vegeta- 

 ble germs from the animating influence of sun and air. By 

 degrees, however, the floods washed down the seeds of 

 grasses and herbs upon the desert area, and humbler forms 

 of vegetation crept from the borders toward the centre. 

 At length the entire area smiled with vernal flowers, and 

 browned in the frosty blasts of winter. The bulky acorn, 

 and walnut, and hickory-nut traveled with less facility, and 

 the forest more sluggishly encroached upon the lake's aban- 

 doned domain. In this stage of the history the Indian was 

 here. For aught I know, he was here while yet the prairies 

 were a lake-bottom. His canoe may have been paddled 

 over the future spires of Bloomington and Springfield, and 

 the muscalonge may have been pursued through the future 

 streets of Chicago ; but, at least, the Indian was present 

 in the interval of time by which the herb distanced the 

 tree in their race for possession of the new soil. In this 

 interval he plied the firebrand in the brown sedges of au- 

 tumn, and made for himself an Indian-summer sky, while 

 he cleared his favorite hunting-ground of the rank growths 

 which impeded both eye and foot. While the Indian was 

 engaged in these pursuits, and while yet the forest had not 

 had time to extend itself over the prairie, the white man 

 came up the lake from Mackinac, crossed over the prairies 

 to the Mississippi, saw the Indian engaged in his burnings, 

 and hastily concluded that this was the means by which 



