The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1932-05-12

Ice ADVANCE, on the slopes or near
the bottom Of valley. The glacier
passed over, crushing them be-
meath millions Of tons Of ice, push
ing mammoth quantities of earth
and rock upon them, pouring sand
in to fill the ravine further when
the glacier melted and streams
rushed from its softening sides;
leaving the mammoth Lake Agas-
siz, the pool Of glacial water hun
dreds Of miles across, to lap or
roar above them for other thous-
ands Of years. Such has been the
external fate of these tiny plant
bits.
Examination by DR.. C. o. Ro-
sendahl and Frederick c. Buffers
of the department of botany has
revealed amazing facts about these
bits of plants. A little spruce tree.
for example, probably no more
than an inch in diameter, was found
to have been about one hundred
years old when overcome. It may
have started life gaily enough, but
It sprouted at a time when the
great glacier, pushing down from
the north, was drawing near. Icy
winds from that gigantic ice cap
ered-and shrank. It's first growth
smote the tiny spruce, and it shiv-
rings were nearly normal, but pres
emily they decreased. How the sea-
son changed from year to year is
pictured clearly in these rings. Win
tiers grew longer, and the growing
seasons Of summer shortened
swiftly. From larger growth rings
dating from the extreme youth of
the spruce, usually several cells
wide, the rings shrank to one cell
in width. The ancient summer had
been reduced to probably no more
than two or three weeks, almost
no growing season at all. During
more than eleven months of the
year the little spruce was stand
ing up to its neck in snow, while
the northern horizon was darkened
by the menacing bulk Of the on
coming ice. Then, one day, the ad-
vancing juggernaut crushed down
upon the valley. Blocks of ice
were cracked off by gravity and
pitched over the side. Tons of
rocks, sand and soil were precip-
itated over the plant life and the
spruce tree, and there they lay un-
til scoop at the bottom of a nine
ty foot well brought them to light
in 1881.
Pieces of wood subjected to such
gigantic pressure that their shape
has been changed from round to
eliptical are among the exhibits in
the botany office. One Of the ar
ticles recovered is a spruce cone
in practically perfect preservation.
Spruce needles, plant rootlets,
nodes such as the leaves Of coarse
grasses branch off from, and a
vast number of different seeds are
among the things recovered.
When the botanical remains
scooped from the we'll were depos-
tied before Drs. Buffers and Ro-
sendahl it set them a task such as
no routine day would ever produce.
Each seed was what is it," and
every bit of wood a picture puzzle,
begun by nature in a benefcent
mood and terribly scrambled by
naural forces run amuck. What
could that scraggly piece Of stick
have been. Let's see; let's see.
Maybe some part Of spruce cone;
possibly a spruce cone ground down
bv tremendous weights. DR.. But
tiers got spruce cone and ground
it down as nearly in the manner OF
a glacier as possible. When 1t
EMERGED from the grinding the
modern cone resembled the rem
nants of the ancient one so closely
that the pair of botanists decided
that one mystery had been solved.
The seeds are of a hundred des'
criptions. Some of them have been
identified and some have not. Even
inductive and deduction procedure
has been used to bring knowledge
of what these objects were. In
many cases the efforts have been
successful.
AS a matter of fact there is rel
atively little mystery regarding the
types of vegetation of 100000 years
ago. It was pretty much the same
we have now, but there is enormous
interest in the effects of the ap-
preaching cold on such bits of plant
life as the spruce whose growth
rings shrank as the ice came on,
and in the fact that vegetable mat
ter should have survived such ages
of wear and tear. That the arti-
cles have not disintegrated is due
to the fact that they were buried
in clay at a point below the water
table in the earth. This effectively
sealed them off from the air. In
the presence of oxygen they would
have been destroyed centuries ago.
To obtain the tiny material from
the clays in which it was scooped
I'D a method of foation was en-
ployed. Jumps of the fine clay
were dumped into dish contain
ing water. AS the clay Jumps dis
integrated the seeds, sticks, cones
and vegetale matter fioated to the
surface.
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