New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1899-05-03
They Float Around In a Careless sort
of Fashion, With an Occasional
c -eer Freak, One Being to Spin
Around Like n Nion.ter Ton e

and rattlesnakes Now, Wayne has
none Of the latter, but of the former
well, talk about Pike county fshingl
Young fellow, Pike county isn't a
marker to Wayne when it comes to
downright, honest, clean cut piscatorial
sport. Pike may lie about it better, but
when you come to sift the facts from
the fiction before an Investigating COM
mission you II find that Wayne catches
the biggest trout and the fghtingest
bass every time, and don t you forget it. :
tBut started to tell you about the
floating islands in the old county.
Way back in the twenties the Delaware
and Hudson Canal company gouged
channel in the face of the earth from
Rondout to Honesdale and called it
canal For reservoirs and feeders to this
canal the level of ponds and lakes along
the route was raised by means Of dams
from 10 to 30 feet. While the dams
were in process of building the timber
about the ponds was felled up to the
artificial water line and in many cases
really valuable lumber was left to decay
where it fell. These dead trunks formed,
when the water rose to its newer level,
the basis Of these floating islands, which
may be found in SO many of the lakes
OF Wayne county. INTERVIEWING branch
es and twigs Of the trees themselves and
large quantities of underbrush served
to bind the logs together in something
like solid mass, thereby forming RATS
Of more or less buoyancy and size. In
the course of time water weeds of va
rious kinds attached themselves to the
raft, and eventually became part of
it. Gradually light. thin mold &C.
cumulated on the island, and in this
mold birds planted seeds and grain,
which, sprouting, growing and finally
dying and rotting, did their part in the
making of the whole All of the larger
islands bear from one to score of trees,
many Of which have attained consid-
cradle growth.
"You might suppose that to walk
upon Or to fish from enc Of these islands
would be source of some danger, but,
aside from an occasional wetting of the
feet no accidents from this cause have
ever occurred, so far as have been able
to learn. The sensation produced by
walking on a floating island is very
similar to that which you and I have
both experienced when, as boys, we ran
on thin, young ice, or thicker old and
rotten ice. You remember how the ice
used to bend under your weight as you
ran across it, sometimes sinking nearly
foot and then with the next step ris-
ing to meet you, possibly throwing you
and perhaps giving you a ducking2
Well, it's the same way with the float
ing islands, but with the element of
danger eliminated. 1t has the same fas-
cination. ;.
"Strange as it may seem, very few of
these floating islands have become per-
manently anchored to the bottom of the
lakes They are as nomadic and as I'M
settled in their habits as the Arab
They lack what we country people call
stick-to .itiveness. They are the con-
trariest cusses that ever happened.
Sometimes mere breath Of wind will
send one of them scooting from one end
of the lake to the other and again you
couldn't bulge that same island with
a 100 ton, compound freight locomotive
and political pull. Once thoroughly
domesticated, however, they make ex-
cellent weather vanes, for they invaria-
bly, seek the lee shore of the lake.
81 recall peculiar thing that hap
pened years ago to the island in White
Oak pond, near Aldenville, some eight
n To ho MI
Honesdale. By the way, this particular
island is the largest Of the lot; so large
in fact that the center rises fully ten
feet abQye the- water line The farmer
owning this island proposed erecting a
summer house On the elevation, but
was obliged to give it up owing to his
inability to lay a proper foundation
without driving piles, and to do that
would result in mailing the island to
the bottom. =:-.:..>z I. - -, +.
"Well, as was going to say, this is
land one day eloped with 4 southwest
zephyr, which promptly deserted as
soon as it had got its consort into the
middle of the lake. There it foated in
a sultry summer sun, with no means Of
motion in itself and milking time ap-
preaching. Presently the edge of lit
tie breeze from the northwest struck
the wanderer on the port quarter and
things began to look a little brighter.
Unfortunately for the island, however,
at about the same moment that the first
gust landed a wind of equal intensity
came up from the southeast and its
edge caught the island on the starboard
bow. In less than a minute these two
contrary winds had that island spin
ming around like top. You may be-
lieve this or not, as you like. Lean
show you the island any time that
you'll come up to the. old county. -
Chicago Inter Ocean.
The most magnificent tomb in the
world is deemed to be the palace tenn