Frank E. Horack

“ The antiquity of mankind has always been a subject of greatest interest to man himself. As a human habitat Iowa is very old. Whether man was here before the glaciers is not at all certain. Evidences there are that a race or races of human beings dwelt in the Iowa country for countless generations before Columbus ever thought of his great western voyage. And even after the great discovery by Columbus, nearly two centuries had passed before the white man had gone so far into the interior of this continent as the Iowa country. ”

“ The Railroads. — To carry the products of Iowa to the markets of the world, private enterprise has literally covered the State with a network of railroads. Over nine thousand miles of rails traverse the State; and every one of our ninety-nine counties is crossed by one or more railroads. Indeed, it is asserted that few farmers are more than ten miles distant from a railroad station.
The Climate. — It is not the soil alone that has made Iowa rich and prosperous: the climate must also be taken into account. ”

“ The Permanent Settlement of Iowa. — After the Indian title had been extinguished by the Black Hawk Purchase, settlers began literally to pour into the Iowa country even before they were legally entitled to do so. From 1830 it became apparent that Iowa was destined to be a land of homes and permanent settlements. Towns sprang up with mushroom rapidity, some of which (such as Dubuque, Burlington, Davenport, and Keokuk) have continued to flourish and prosper. ”

“ Millions of acres of fertile land are scarcely better than a desert of sand if climatic conditions are not favorable to the growth of plant and animal life. The director of the Iowa Weather and Crop Service says: "Situated near the geographical center of the United States, too far inland to receive the equalizing thermal effects of winds blowing directly from the oceans, the climate of Iowa is strictly continental in type. ”

“ In the ten years since 1900 the population has decreased in seventy-one counties of the State and increased in but twenty-eight. Cheaper lands in Canada, the far west, and the southwest have been attracting the young men of Iowa, as the Iowa country in the forties and fifties attracted their grandfathers from the older States. ”

“ This implies a very wide range in temperature, winters of considerable severity, summers of almost tropical heat, and a large percentage of sunshine as compared with insular regions. As there are no mountain ranges, nor considerable differences in the altitude of the several sections, the climate of the state is quite homogeneous.... In fact, it is the best watered and most productive mid-continent region known on earth. Its worst drouths and seasons of floods have never been famine breeders." A complete failure of crops has never been known in Iowa.
QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. ”

“ He has left a vast amount of evidence as to his physical characteristics and the material stage of his civilization; but he is withal a great mystery. His mounds, so numerous, constitute together the most baffling problem in Archæology. ”