INDIANA'S UNRIVALED SAND-DUNES-A 

 NATIONAL PARK OPPORTUNITY 



By Orpheus Moyer Schantz 



A DUNE region ordinarily signifies 

 an inhospitable, wind-swept tract 

 of country, barren of vegetation 

 and sparsely inhabited by animal life. 

 The term "sand-dune" long ago denoted 

 a land to be avoided by travelers when- 

 ever possible. Lack of water, intense 

 heat, and the ever-drifting sand itself 



Photograph by Frances La Follette 

 A POPLAR WHICH CONVERTS ITS BRANCHES 

 INTO ROOTS AND ITS ROOTS INTO 

 BRANCHES, AS THE WIND BLOWS 



At one time this tree of the Indiana sand- 

 dunes was buried up to the dark line. The 

 limbs then did duty as roots, but now that it is 

 being uncovered they are again performing 

 their normal function as limbs. 



were sufficient causes for shunning any 

 dune country as a highway. Charles 

 Kingsley, in Westward Ho, says: "The 

 Spaniards neared and neared the fatal 

 dunes that fringed the shore for many a 

 weary mile." 



The dunes of the Atlantic coast, driven 

 inland by the terrific storms off the ocean, 

 at times have devastated large areas of 

 fertile land, relentlessly destroying all 

 vegetation, and the dune regions of in- 

 terior America were the bane of early 

 pioneers. 



At the head of Lake Michigan, includ- 

 ing the entire shoreline of Indiana and 

 parts of the adjoining shores of Illinois 

 and Michigan, there is a dune country, 

 unique and wonderful and entirely differ- 

 ent from our usual ideas of sand-dunes. 



The vegetation of the average desert 

 or sandy region is usually an interesting 

 example of the survival of the fittest, 

 and most of the plant families remaining 

 have adapted themselves to the severe 



Photograph by J. R. Daniels 



A FIND FOR THE ORNITHOLOGIST 



He sits and blinks the day away amid trees 

 and shrubs of bewildering beauty growing on 

 the shores of a fresh-water sea. 



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