Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/36



In our limited world the investigators have explored the beds of ancient rivers, lakes and seas; the caverns of rocks and mountains, and penetrated deep into the earth in search of knowledge that may be derived from rock formations, animal and vegetable fossils. These to the scientist reveal much of the story of earth's growth; its stages of development; its desolations and changes through the agencies of fire, water and air. In these reservoirs have been found keys to earth’s prehistoric changes. They reveal to the student a history of its geological growth, vegetable and animal development for millions of years before written history begins. Scientists explore every known country, every island of the ocean, examine rocks, clays, gravels and fossils in pursuit of knowledge of the past. From these they read much of the story of the earliest formations, convulsions, growth and population of the earth with almost as much certainty as though the events had been inscribed in legible characters on imperishable tablets. If is from these evidences that we learn some of the history of the remote past, relating to the land we live in, which men have named Iowa.

Professor Samuel Calvin has well said:

“The finding of a single genuine prehistoric arrow-point may enable us to write up an important chapter in the history of a people that no historian ever saw, and concerning whose existence there is not even the shadow of a human tradition. When, as is often possible, we may add the knowledge gained by exploring their homes, their shrines and sepulchers, we are in a position to write up somewhat more fully the portion of their history which deals with their daily occupations and their domestic life. Many records tell of other facts than the mere presence of human occupants in a region such as Iowa. Vegetable remains preserved in peat bogs in the mud that accumulated at the bottom of ancient ponds and lakes enable us to reconstruct the prehistoric forests. With such vegetable remains are usually found bones of the animals that lived in the forests. Human weapons or human skeletons are often there too. So in records preserved in the peat bog or in the lake bed, science may rehabilitate in a general way the prehistoric landscapes, and may see them enlivened with multitudes of struggling creatures, man among the rest; all bent on accomplishing the two great objects for which living things below the higher planes