State Convention—The Soil of Wisconsin. 359 
Mr. Tenney: I am afraid that would bo rather foreign to the 
agricultural question, I can’t tell how mankind came on the gdobe; 
but they were found at an early day on this continent, as well as 
on the other continents; that he only learned, as he moved farther 
north. As he got into a northern climate, got pinched by our Wis¬ 
consin winters; these sharpened his wits. 
Mr. Roberts: I do not dispute but that this country was inhab¬ 
ited by a race of beings. I suppose there are indisputable proofs 
of that. I would like to know how they came here in the first 
place. 
Mr. Wood: I think we ought to have a corps of geologists here 
to discuss this last paper. I think they would doubtless admit that 
they had heard some new ideas advanced. As the gentleman spoke 
of that race of beings who had cultivated the surface of Wisconsin 
until it was worn out, as we are doing at the present day, it seemed 
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to me that it was quite conjectural that a race of people, capable 
of accomplishing such results as that, would not have left some 
marks behind them which would have been more enduring than 
anything we find. Ill our present system of culture, which does 
exhaust the soil, if the present race of people should pass away, 
there would be traces left which would outlast more than one geo¬ 
logical era or age. It don’t seem so me that the little paltry mounds 
we find, which are no more than most school-children could have 
accomplished, if they took a notion, are of much value to base the 
supposition upon that there was a very numerous, intelligent peo¬ 
ple here, and that they cultivated the soil to such an extent as to 
exhaust its fertility, and unfit it for the dwelling-place of human 
beings. If it was inhabited by a race of people at that time, they 
must have been very insignificant in numbers. They are hardly 
worth considering. They have left no marks behind them; nothing 
that would compare with what would be found if another geologi¬ 
cal era were to pass over the country as it is at present. 
Mr. Benton: I caught one idea, and that is, that this paper gave 
us light relative to the gypsum-beds of the country. I would like 
to get some idea of the modus operandi. Whether it be a chemical 
structure of organic with inorganic elements. I don’t know but 
it may lead some of the scientific men to examine and thus 
solve the question. I think we contribute liberally enough to 
support the educational institutions in this State. I think it would 
