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Show ondeif ii! f)iiii9S l ' ..---iiwjjjawwwIIAa.-.- .vw...UU CA-lrmiNG Tnc Mlh'lATUJit. MOUNTAINS ' ' LYINC! wil til ii u ride of one hour and a luilj' fiinii tho fcnlcr of llu cily ;f t'hicairo is a natural wonderland, which has altract-I'd altract-I'd Hie keen interest of scientists the world over. Yet it is not likely that une out of 11 thousand Chicago people over visits it much less is acquainted with the marvels which it presents. When the International Association'1 of l'lant Geographers held their meeting meet-ing in I'hieaiio years nfjo its members scientists from several continents, who were fjiniiliar with most parts of the world were asked what features they specially wished to see in the United States. Every one of them included in-cluded in his list of four or five locali- j ties the sand dunes aliout the southern end of Lake Michigan. They shared honors with the Grand Canyon of the Colorado and Niagara Falls as the leading: lead-ing: attractions of the country in the minds of the visiting scientists. Lately earnest efforts have boon made to induce Indiana to purchase the dunes tract and make of it a slate 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 flowei's which grow there and nowhere else within hundreds of miles of Chicago. Terhaps 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 duae woods are to be found ten or a dozen varieties of orchids or-chids the flowers of vhich are strangely strange-ly beautiful. One mtist go hundreds of milPrf 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 at-traction within many miles 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 chang-ing natural conditions. Usually these changes extend over centuries, so slow is the normal change in the surface of the land on which they grow and in the other factors which affect them. The Shifting Panorama. But in the dune country such changes in surface are rapid. From year to year the dunes creep and crawl under the influence of the winds. New dunes nre created, old dunes swept away ; where a dune has been conquered by plants and trees and has stood the same for years the shifting sands may start an invasion and pile a new dune on top of the old. To all these constantly con-stantly shifting conditions the trees and plants as constantly fight to accommodate accom-modate themselves. One may see a promising forest of jack pines, maples or cottonwoods half buried in the rising sand or drowned in the flood, with nothing but their dead tops projecting. One may find where the willows, for instance, quickly changing to meet the changing conditions, condi-tions, have grown trunks twice as tall as usual, with roots running out sev eral feet higher than the original surface sur-face of the ground. Sometimes after the trees have grown tall the sand moves away instead in-stead of piling up and the roots are left bare, twisting and twining in curious shapes. Some of the sand dunes are more than 10 feet high, and in many instances in-stances their lops and sides are carved into beautiful and strange shapes by the lake winds. Especially desirable is the preservation preserva-tion of a part of the dune country as n park and reservation for v.ihl life near a big city, because in addition to its wealth of plant growth it is one of the great way-stations of Hie birds in their llights to and from the South. The chain of the great lakes bars the North and South pathway of the birds f). hundreds of miles, and in their multitudes multi-tudes they sweep round the western edge of Lake Michigan to find the first open road. In the spring and fall bun dreds of different species stop over hi the wooded country of the dunes to rest their wings. Eagles Seen There. Prof. II. C. Cowles of the departmenf of botany in the University of Chicago, who has worked and studied in th-dunes th-dunes for 20 years, has often seeil eagles there. Many varieties of owls and hawks are also among the feathered feath-ered residents. A large part of the thine country which is adjacent to Chicago has already al-ready been exploited. The manufacturing manufactur-ing town of Gary was built among the dunes, which were leveled to suit the purposes of commerce. Another big tract is used as a sand mine and ruined as an object of natural beauty and interest. in-terest. It happens that during the Gary boom a tract of 2,500 acres, lying between be-tween Dune Park station and Michigan City, was bought up by a local syndicate syndi-cate 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 thut 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. r"n Miimn u i ii i ii. in iij i.Kii nwmi.' ri H imji n iiii in i.i.itu)iwH-y" ; i i " uniini r-ii r m THE. XVfcR CHANGING CUKCS 1 |