turned. Cell life was powerless before the vanquishing crystals of the
infiltrating calcite. Only the inorganic part of that vast world of
organic life here remains in these fossils to tell the story--the
walls of the corals, the shells of the brachiopods, the teeth of the
monster fishes. Then came succeeding ages, and finally the great
glaciers which brought down the drift, rounded the sharp ridges,
filled up the deep valleys and gorges, and gave to Iowa her fertile
and inexhaustible soil. The earth was prepared to receive her king.
The glaciers receded. Man came.

Now here, on this bit of limestone rock, the struggle is on again. The
mosses and the lichens have proceeded far enough in their work of
disintegration to provide substance for the slender red stem of
dogwood, which is growing out of the soil they have made. The fallen
leaves of the surrounding trees follow the pioneer work of the mosses.
The rain and the cracking frosts are other agencies. By and by the
organic will triumph over the inorganic, the cell over the crystal,
the plant over the rock, and where now the fossils lie beautiful
flowers will bloom.

The short winter day draws rapidly to a close and there is time for
only a brief survey of the beauty of the upland trees. The fairy-like
delicacy of the hop hornbeam, with its hop clusters and pointing
catkins; the slender gracefulness of the chestnut oak; the Etruscan
vase-like form of the white elm; the flaky bark and pungent, aromatic
twigs of the black cherry; the massive, noble, silver-gray trunk of
the white-oak; the lofty stateliness, filagree bark, and berry-like
fruit of the hackberry; the black twigs of the black oaks, ashes,
hickories and walnuts etched against the sky,--all these arrest your
attention and retard your steps until the sun is near the horizon and