EXPLORING THE LAKES OF NORTHERN WISCONSIN 



By PAUL S. CONGER 



Custodian, Section of Diatoms, U. S. National Museum, and Research Associate, 



Carnegie Institution of Washington 



Wherever natural waters occur, microscopic life may be expected 

 in abundance, with diatoms (those one-celled or colonial plants with 

 boxlike cell walls of glass or silica) almost inevitably present. But 

 some waters, depending on their nature, are more productive than 

 others. To find a place where such waters of varying character, with 

 consequent diversity of life, are within easy reach of each other is not 

 simple, but northern Wisconsin is just such a place. During the latter 

 half of the summer of 1937 I was able to continue collection of diatoms, 

 as in two previous summers, among the lakes here, in cooperation 

 with the University of Wisconsin, and the State Geological and 

 Natural History Survey. 



The region has had a peculiar history of exploration. Visited first 

 by the French Jesuits in conquest of new domains, then again around 

 the turn of the century by the great lumber barons in conquest of 

 rich virgin forests, it was left, a barren cut-over and burned-over 

 waste, to trappers and adventurers. In recent years a wide-awake con- 

 servation commission has realized that it has all the attributes of a 

 great summer playground — good climate, beautiful lakes, fishing, 

 quiet, and seclusion — and is taking timely and energetic steps to pro- 

 tect it as such. 



Half a century ago Dr. Edward A. Birge, pioneer biologist of the 

 University of Wisconsin, visited the lonely northern woodland and 

 lake region by horse and buggy, over rough logging roads, and saw 

 in these lakes a rich territory for a far-sighted limnological program. 

 Some 12 years ago, with his associate Dr. Chancey Juday, he again 

 visited the region, setting up a laboratory at Trout Lake in a deserted 

 bath house where they could make a few observations for compari- 

 son with their studies of southern Wisconsin lakes. But the region 

 proved so varied and so interesting that they stayed on and on until 

 their laboratory and its staff grew to include five buildings and a per- 

 sonnel of chemists, physicists, and bacteriologists, as well as biologists. 



Nature here seems to have planned an ideal layout for the student 

 of fresh-water biology. With the Trout Lake laboratory as a focus, 

 within a radius of 30 or 40 miles, there are in the one county reputedly 



