Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1870 [PAGE 364]

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extended down into the middle regions of North America. Agassiz, some years ago, demonstrated to the satisfaction of the scientific world, that a great ice cap did cover the drift regions of the American continent. The carbon iferous summer slowly ended, and the glacial winter as slowly came on. An entire change of the flora and fauna of these parts of the earth took place. Glaciers covered our land in every favorable locality. Seas of ice accumulated in the basins. Stones were torn away from the outcropping ledges ; ledges were ground into sand and clay ; motion took place in various directions ; but the general movement was towards the south and west. As the climate again grew warmer, the ice cap slowly melted, commencing at the south and melting the ice towards the north. Basins became filled with water, and lakes and seas existed, into which glacial born currents of muddy water poured, and in which ice bergs and ice floes floated, as wind or currents drove them. And we thus have the compound forces of the glacier, the ice berg, and the water torrent in vigorous operation. These causes, added to and coming after the peaceful agencies and influences, spoken of in the early part of these remarks, explain all that wre see, while examining the drift formations, with which our Illinois rocks are covered. The peaceful causes which worked before the drift have also worked since the drift period, and produced some of the later phenomena observable. In this way our soils are formed; in this way they are mingled and mixed ; and in this way they are carried on long journeys over the earth's surface. In this way they are pulverized, ground up, kneaded. In this way their volume is greatly increased; and they are sweetened up and changed from their sour conditions during the carboniferous ages, and made fit for grains, grasses, hard wood, trees and man—the crowning and noblest work of all. These are the forces which shoveled and carried such a grand deposit, and spread it over our noble State. And here where we stand, almost in the very garden of the State, I cannot refrain from a local allusion or two. Look around you, you people of Ottawa, and see how you are blessed in all things heart could desire. Rich in agricultural and horticultural resources; the St. Peters sandstone crumbling from your hills like unworked mines of melting, crystalline sugar; the black treasures of the earth almost under your feet; a stream ready to toil and make your city alive with the hum of wheels and the bustle of manufactures—all these, and more, have blessed your lot over that of ordinary men. Only in our own unrivalled valley of Rock river has nature been alike kindly in her manifold gifts. Our prairies there are so beautiful, and our soil is so rich, that we believe some lucky farmer, in sight of the glancing waters of our unrivaled stream, will some day find the remains of the old stump of the old tree of knowledge, as he delves in his rich fields. Man acts on nature, and nature in turn acts on man ; and it is no wonder our State has robbed the Old Dominion of her standing boast, and now^ arrogates to herself the proud title of " the mother of Presidents," as she has already so pre-eminently become the mother of noble men! But pardon this digression, and I will add a closing remark about our soils.