Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 271, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 November 1916 — Wonderful Dunes of Indiana [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Wonderful Dunes of Indiana

CDMBINO ThE- MINIATURI. MOUNTAINS

LYING within a ride of one hour and a half from the center of the city of Chicago is a natural wonderland, which has attracted the keen Interest of scientists the worlds over. Yet it is not likely that one out of a thousand Chicago people ever visits it —much less is acquainted with the marvels which it presents. When the International Association of Geographers held their meeting in Chicago years ago its members —scientists from several continents, who were familiar with parts of the world —were asked what features they specially wished to see in the United States. Every one of them included in his list of four or five localities the sand dunes about the southern end of Lake Michigan. They shared honors with the Grand Canyon of the Colorado and Niagara Falls as the leading attractions of the country in the minds of the visiting scientists. Lately earnest efforts have been made to Induce Indiana to purchase the dunes tract and make of it a state park. It has also been suggested that the federal government acquire it and set it aside as a national park. Wonderful Wild Flowers. The first thing which makes the sand dunes country unique in America is the great number of rare wild flowers which grow there and nowhere else within hundreds of miles of Chicago. Perhaps in no other single place are to be found all the thousand varieties of plant life which are native to the dunes. Here, for instance, one is startled to see the cactus—typical of the western deserts —growing in profusion. Here also the trailing arbutus, usually found only much farther north, blooms in all its glory. In the dune woods are to be found ten or a dozen varieties of orchids, the flowers of which are strange-

ly beautiful. One must go hundreds of miles from Chicago to find in any other locality such a display of orchids. In the spring the more wooded dunes are carpeted with ten or more different kinds of violets and in the early fall the fringed gentian—almost extinct elsewhere about Chicago—blooms in great abundance on the sloping sides of the dunes. This is but to mention the first half dozen of the more than thousand varieties of plant life which make the dunes with their intervening marshes and sloughs the greatest attraction within many mljes of Chicago to lovers of wild flowers. But the dunes have another and a most remarkable feature which makes them almost unique in the affection of the scientist and nature lover. Plants and trees, it is known, change their shapes and their habits of growth to accommodate themselves to changing natural conditions. Usually these

a big city, because in addition to its wealth of plant growth it is one of the great way-stations of the birds in their flights to and from the South. The chain of the great lakes bars the North and South pathway of the birds for hundreds of miles, and in their multitudes ,they sweep round the western edge of Lake Michigan to find the first open road. In the spring and fall hundreds of different species stop over in the wooded country of the dunes to rest their wings. Eagles Seen There.

Prof. H. C. Cowles of the department of botany in the University of Chicago, who has worked and studied in the dunes for 20 years, has often seen eagles there. Many varieties of owls and hawks are also among the feathered residents. A large part of the dune country which Is adjacent to Chicago has already been exploited. The manufacturing town of Gary was built among the dunes, which were leveled to suit the purposes of commerce. z Another big tract is used as a sand mine and ruined as an object of natural beauty and interest. - It happens that during the Gary boom a tract of 2,500 acres, lying between Dune Park station and Michigan City, was bought up by a local syndicate and is still held untouched in its original condition. It fronts eight miles on Lake Michigan, and Professor Cowles is authority for the statement that its beach cannot be surpassed by that at Atlantic City. The slope out to deep water is most gradual, and the sand itself is much finer than ordinary sea sand, because it is sifted by the winds, which leave only the finest.