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THE LAKES OF IOWA,—PAST AND PRESENT. 155 
that passengers will pass dry-shod through the bed of that 
ancient lake, although many fathoms beneath the level at 
which its waters used to rest. 
The peculiar outline of the bluffs along the Missouri River 
valley is one of the most interesting features of this remark- 
able deposit. As one views them in the distance, and in 
their nakedness, for they are often entirely destitute of trees, 
towering up from the level bottom-land, sometimes more 
than two hundred feet in height, so steep in some places that 
a man cannot climb them, he can hardly rid himself of the 
idea that they are supported by a frame-work of rocks as 
other bluffs are. Yet not a rock* or pebble of any kind or 
size exists above their base of drift, except a few calcareous 
concretions which were formed from the limy water that now 
percolates through the whole mass. The form and arrange- 
ment of their numerous rounded prominences sometimes 
present views of impressive beauty as they stretch away in 
the distance, or form bold curves in the line of hills. 
A few miles below the city of Council Bluffs, they present 
a full crescentic front to the westward, with the broad Mis- . 
souri bottom stretching miles away from their base to the 
river. Their only vegetation here is a covering of wild 
grasses, and as the mound-like peaks and rounded ridges jut 
above each other, or diverge in various directions while they 
recede backwards and upwards to the higher lands, the set- 
ting sun throws strange and weird shadows across them, 
Producing a scene quite in keeping with that wonderful his- 
tory of the past of which they form a part. 


