The Oakley herald. [volume] (Oakley, Idaho) 1908-1961, 1919-08-29

rocks and stones and quicksnnds soping very
gradually into deep water There is probably NO
nrer freshwater bathing beach In the world
Don't think OF the dunes as heaps Of bare sand
In 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 great natural prOpagating garden
with most astonishing array of trees and plants
and flowers. This garden is packed full of flora
from the Lake Superior region, the Atlantic coast
the middle South and the western prairie. 1t
seems to have almost everything In the plant line
from cactus to cranberres and from pines to tulip
trees. list Of only the most characteristic and
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
towering dune crowned with flowers and plants
and trees tomorrow II is gone and where 1t was Is
a great blowout of gllstening sand, with Its steep
sides strewn with dead trunks exhumed from an
ancient graveyard OF q previous forest Today
there Is deep cash in the bluff tomorrow Its
place is taken by very lofty heap OF white
sand that has come up, grain by grain, out OF the
lake, on which grasses and plants and shrubs and
treelets already struggling for foothold. To-
day stands a forest the edge of a shallow pond ;
tomorrow it Is cemetery, with even the tree
tops 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 1t gets there. Lake Michigan
deposting 1t at the dunes for period reckoned at
about 5000 years. Previous to this period the
level of the lake 90 or 60 feet higher than now
and the discharge was toward the Mississippi at
a point where now the dunes. When the
ice-gorge or glacer which prevented the discharge
of water into the st. Lawrence 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 begun.
Public land surveys made in 1895 and soundngs
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 is water from 80 to 60
feet deep The old shore line extends out from
three to nine miles; then there is abrupt drop
OF several hundred feet.
This Is an unparalleled erosion; It Is accounted
for by the softness of the shore, whlc, is largely
composed Of material that ground very fine
by the glaciers that deposited it. II Is estimated
that 100000 tons of soil Is taken yearly by the
lake from the shore north of Chico 60 SO there
is plenty Of material for building operations al
the dunes.
These facts suggest this interesting question
What will happen to the dunes when the supply
of building material stops?
And stop II WILL and that comparatively soon
For the shore north of Chicago will In few years
be pretty sody settled by people who have money
10 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 wheo the west
shore will be protected from erosion by piers and
breakwnters. The supply OF building material for
the dunes will presumably stop. Perhaps then the
dunes will stop walking"
Let hope that long before that time the
Dunes National park will be a peoples playground
dedicated to public recreation rorevsA