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What was it that laid the pabulum for the great and fertile 

 states on both sides of the Mississippi? What made our great 

 prairies what they are? The breaking down of the rocks from 

 the cliff is by water entering seams and freezing it rends great 

 masses, which go thundering into the valleys below. The 

 great glaziers from the north came grinding and pressing south- 

 ward, covering the whole country, and melting, rushing floods 

 of water carried the debris far to the south, and again the 

 gentle rains came down carrying the fine silt and deposited 

 from the hillsides the rich soil of these great prairie regions. 

 There is no other country upon the face of this globe that has 

 so much good, rich arable land, containing all the essentials for 

 diversified agriculture as has our great prairie region of the 

 north. Still this silent medium, water is working to-day as 

 yesterday, and long past, and will work to-morrow and forever, 

 to change the whole face of nature, working constantly in every- 

 thing on the great principle of compensation. The God of 

 nature uses these little drops of water to continually wear away 

 certain portions of the earth and carry them to other regions to 

 make perhaps fertile land in some future era of this earth's his- 

 tory. The soft water as we get it from the clouds is nature' s 

 universal solvent; it takes from everything it passes through, 

 soluble material to become incorporated as part of itself and yet 

 it is as bright and sparkling as though it contained nothing. 

 Again the rain falls upon the mountains, the snow melts and 

 creeps into the crevices of the earth and underlies the whole 

 country, forming streams and lakes and little rivulets, and per- 

 meating the soil. It passes over a bed of iron ore, it takes up 

 from that iron ore and coming into a marsh, it spreads over 

 that marsh and fills the ground full of iron ore. It all comes 

 from the water, and yet you cannot see it unless in excessive 

 degree, it may tinge red the earth upon which it evaporates. 



The work of God is not for a day ; it is not for a year ; it is not 

 for an age. For myriad years this earth has been gathering 

 strength and power, in fact we see that in every successive 

 geologic stage of the world it has been getting better and better, 



