Durant weekly news. (Durant, Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 190?-1944, 1916-05-05
Biologists Field Day 4 Find

shelves that marked the aery perches
Of the woodland gods; perches
chence they look down and order the
sweet drama Of the woods.
To the physiographists every step
was new lesson. Even the soil
they trod was trying to tell it's story
at every step they took, whether
sandy shale from ancient boulders
born, or fossil shells that spoke of
abysmal seas that once o'ercapped
their path Jutting rocks beside the
river-bed told of undermining action
of streams, or boulders disheveled in
the bed of the pebbly stream told Of
days when the topographic level
knew no such bed nor stream.
Where horizontal strata of. rocks
lay upon a truncated and tilted bed
below, exposed upon the valley-wall,
was clearly shown one of those pro-
found changes of land level Of pre-
historic times when the subaerial
orces knawed upon the face Of the
uplifted atmosphere, and how sinking
by negative disastrophic process be-
meath the hydrospheric blanket of
the ocean, Nature healed over the
marred visage with layered deposit
tions brought from continental plains,
distant peaks, valley floors, and heal
ing it, lifted the land mass once more
into the atmosphere where the wealth
ering gods had fret it into the rock
strewn, forest-clad, fern-grown, Shuk-
wa dell.
Said one of the students as the
classes sauntered over the soft forest
carpet where through the clustered
temple of the world glimpses of the
azure cloud-flecked sky greeted the
uplift face to the god of the open
sky" l have lived here nearly all my
life, but / nexer before knew that
there we're such beautiful scenes near
Durant" Beauty is every where, if
only it is walked within the soul.
The driest dust, and commonest clod,
and dust-clad ragweed of August
roadside, all have passing beauty in
carnate like verdant field, fragrant,
bloom, or sun-kissed cloud-enmantled
peak, if only the soul strikes up the
sweet chords of harmony between the
inner and outer life.
Upon the boulders, beside the
laughing waters, with singing birds,
and signing breeze through the trees,
beneath the cloud-flecked dome of
blue, the classes sat down for their
last field dinner. Every where there
was the sound of laughter, and an
ecstacy born with the day. It was
indeed pleasurable, but not without
it's muffled undertone of sadness to
the instructor, for himself inspired
by those he sought to inspire, felt
the loss of that coming association
which has been so pleasant and prof
liable in his classes, even before the
dawn of the days of parting.
wealth of material was transport
ed to the laboratories for miscoscopi-
cal and taxonomic study thsi week,
and all-told the expedition was pos
sibly the best intensive field study
ever conducted by the department.
Personal of the field expedition was
as follows: M. NJ Wickham, direc-
tor; Floyd Hagood, assistant direc-
tor; Zoology, Misses Lucille Adams,
Carrie May Stephenson, Wilma Ma
son; Messrs Clarence Allen, Hal
Matthews, Harold Haynes, Thomas
Krumtum, Walter Lambert, Eugene
Faulkner, Botany, Blanche Fontaine,
Roy Taylor, Grady Saylor, and John
Garner. Photography, Misses Angus
ia Pardone, q. o. Wann, Lillah
Franklin, Jennie Murphree and En-.
ory Honts.