Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1919-09-04

rocks and stones and Quicksands, sloping very
gradually into deep water. There is probably no
finer %freshwater bathing beach in the world.
Don't think of the dunes as heaps of bare SAND
in a desert. They are exactly the reverse. They
have water, trees, shrubs, vines, flowers, grass,
birds and small wild animal life. The truth is that
the dunes are a great natural propagating garden
with a most astonishing array of trees and plants
and flowers. This garden is packed full OF nora
from the Lake Superior region, the Atlantic coast,
the middle South and the western prairie. II
seems to have almost everything in the plant line
from cactus to cranberries and from pines to tulip
trees. A list Of only the most characteristic ana
important plant species numbers 2OS.
To the ordinary visitor probably the spectacle
of the walking dunes is the most interesting
Here he sees land in the making. Here today Is a
towering dune crowned with flowers and plants
and trees; tomorrow it is gone and where 1t was Is
a great blowout of glistening sand, with its steep
sides strewn with dead trunks exhumed from an
ancient graveyard of q previous forest. To-Day
there is q deep cash in the bluff; tomorrow us
place is taken by q very lofty heap OF Whlte
sand that has come up, grain by grain, out OF the
lake, on which grasses and plants and shrubs and
treelets are already struggling for a foothold. To
day stands a forest on the edge of a shallow pond;
tomorrow 1t is a cemetery, with even the tree
tons covered by sand marching in from the beach.
The accompanying map and diagram shows
where the material that builds the dunes is COM
ing from and how it gets there. Lake Michigan
has been taking material from the west shore and
depositing it at the dunes for a period reckoned at
about 5000 years. Previous to this period the
level of. the lake was 80 or go feet higher than now
and the discharge was toward the Mississippi at
a point near where now are the dunes. When the
ice-gorge or glacer which prevented the discharge
ofwater into the st. Lawrence was removed and
the lake drained into the Atlantic instead of the
gulf, the level dropped, the present lake currents
set in and the building of the dunes was begun.
Public land surveys made in 1885 and soundings
of Lake Michigan furnish the data for these
estimates: During the last 5000 years the waters
of the lake have washed away about 800 square
miles of land from the shore extending from the
Indiana state line northward into Wisconsin.
Where this land was is now water froIn 30 to 60
feet deep. The old shore line extends out from
three TO nine miles; then there is an abrupt drop
Of several hundred feet.
This is ar. unparalleled erosion; 1t is accounted
for by the ~softness of the shore, which is largely
composed Of material that was ground very fine
nv fine glaciers that deposited 1t. 1t is estimated
that 100000 tons of soil is taken yearly by the
lake from the shore north Of Chicago. So there
Is plenty Of material for building operations at
the dunes.
These facts suggest this interesting question
What will happen to the dunes when the supply
of building material stops?
And stop it will, and that comparatively soon.
For the shore north of Chicago will in a few years
be pretty solidly settled by people who have money
TO spend to prevent further erosion of the shore.
In fact, erosion has already been stopped over
long stretches, and in many places the shore has
been built out. The time Is coming whe1 the west
shore will. be protected from erosion by piers and
brealswaters. The supply Of building material for
the dunes Will presumably stop. Perhaps then the
dunes will stop walking"
Let us hope that long before that time the
Dunes National park viii be q peoples playground.
dedicated to public recreation forever.