Middletown transcript., 1916-10-28
YING within a ride Of one hour
and a half from the center of

and half from the center of
the city Of Chicago is natural
wonderland, which has attract
ed the keen interest Of scientists the
world over. Yet it is not likely that
one out Of thousand Chicago people
ever visits it-much less is acquainted
with the marvels which it presents.
When the international Association
OF Plant Geographers held their meet
Ing in Chicago years ago its members
scientists from several continents,
who were familiar with most parts of
the wOrld-were asked what features
they specially wished to see in the
United States. Every one Of them In
cIuded in his list of four or five locali-
Ties 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 lead
ing 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 state
park. 1t has also been suggested that
the federal government acquire it and
set it aside as 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 eactus-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 or
chids, the flowers of which are strange
ly beautiful. One must go hundreds of
miles from Chicago to find in any other
locality such 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 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 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
are 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 q new dune
on top of the old. To all these con-
stantly shifting conditions the trees
and plants as constantly fight to accom-
mOdate themselves.
One may see a promising forest of
Jack pines, NAPLES or cOttOnwOods half
buried in the rising sand or drowned in
the food, with nothing but their dead
tops projecting. One may find where
the willows, for instance, quickly
changing to meet the changing condi-
tiOns, have grown trunks twice as tall
as usual, with roots running out sew