Friday. September 20. I968

SCARLET AND BLACK

 

GRINNELL BOTANIST EXPLAINS ECO LOGIC

HY
BENJAMIN F. GRAHAM, Jr.

“Mr. Hoar Is Still in Concord,
attending to Botany, Ecology,
etc., with a view to making his
future residence in foreign
parts more truly profitable to
himr"

This comment, written 110
years ago in a letter from Ben-
ry David Thoreau to his cousin
in Bangor, Maine. reveals that
even then, long before the term
ecology had found its way into
the dictionary, Thoreau and at
least some of his contem-
porarles had discovered the
pleasures and increased sense
of gratiiication to be derived
from the ecological point of
view.

To cultivate an awareness of
one's environment, and to real-
ize that no one of its myriad
physical and biological compo
neniii can change without pro-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

here from the eastern half of
the United States, i.e., that half
east of the Hudson River. I
came with some misgivings,
having been led to believe that
lowa was tabletop flat, un-
bearable in the summer and
unthinkable in the winters

It’s not flat. not are the sea-
sons unreasonably extremal
True, you'll probably be able to
get along without unpacking
your crampons and pike, but
it's not flat. The pleasantly roll-
ing topography is the product
of more than 10,000 years or in
termittent rains which have
eroded deep into the land.

From the profiles of the deep
est cuts one can learn some-
thing of the gross physical
changes during the Ice Age,
and their role in building the
substrate on which we live.
Here in Grinnell, the bed-rock
is more than 200 feet below the

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Excavation tor the northeast corner of Roberts Theatre. The
dark-colored Grfmvell peat lies barely exposed in the bottom

of the hole (June 1960).

ducing some consequent change
in each of the others, is to find
at the same time the comfort
of humility and the wonder of
reality. It seems healthful to
discover that nothing one sees
in nature is static.

E v e r y molecule, organism
and population represents the
ephemeral sum ot subtle and
intricate environmental changes
which, having led through cons
to the present, will continue to
lead to the future. Any mole-
cille, organism, or population
which lacks the resiliency to
adapt to environmental change
is doomed to extinction.

i guess what I‘m trying to
say is that life is more inter-
esting, if you‘re aware or
what’s around you, and real<
lze that you’re a part of it.

“And what," you may ask,

“can the ecological point of
View (10 for the Grinnell immi-
grant?” It was to this point that
1 was invited, a few days ago.
to address myseli.

Like some of you, I came

surface. The unconsolidated
material overlying the bedrock
has been physically transported
here.

If you stumble over a gran-
ite boulder as you stroll
through one of the deeper ra<
vines beyond the city limits,
chances are that it‘s a Chunk of
Canadian bedrock which was
carried here by the glacial ice
as it moved down from the
north.

Last summer a young fellow
picked up a piece of pure llaiive
copper near Grinnell. It could
have come only trom northcm
Michigan. perhaps a quarter of
a million years ago,

To understand [he ZOOri'oot
thick layerrcake on which the
campus sits, one can envision
each of four “cake" layers
made of rocky gravel carried
here by the ice from the north,
and dropped as the ice melted
back during a period of warmr
ing climate, Covering the layer-
cake, and separating the four
layers, is the marvelously fine-

 

BENJAMIN r. GRAHAM, JR, Professor of Biology, received
his B. S. and M. S. from the University of Maine and his PhD.
from Duke. He has numerous publications in professional jour-
nals on natural root grafting, in Eastern white pine, airbom
pollen and fungus spores, techniques for introducing radioactive
isotopes into tree stems, and work on some uses or radioactive
Isotopes. He Is listed In AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE,
WHO’S WHO 1N AMERICAN EDUCATION Ind LEADERS lN
AMERICAN SCIENCE. Ill 1961) he received a Natural Science
Foundation grant or 517,44» for root grafting in iorest com-
munities. In 1963 he received another grant of $17,800 to con-

tinue this work.

textured "loess" soil which
blew in from the Missouri
River Valley during each of
the warm windy intecgiacial
periods.

The Ioess is Iowa’s great
agricultural sail, a priceless
heritage, but not present in
infinite supply. You‘ll see
tons of it, having been mis-
treated, moving over to Illi-
nois on our westerly winds
this winter.

To come back to the layer
cake analogy, ii we cut down
through the top two layers
along an eastrwest line just a
few miles north of Grinnell.
and then remove the top two
layers from the southern half
of the state, we Will have CnmA
pletcd a reasonable model of
the glacial stratigraphy of
Iowa

The oldest layer (Nebraskan)

lies on bedrock, the next (Kan-
san) overlies the oldest, and
Grinnell sits atop the ioess
which covers the Kansas glacial
debris. The top two layers
(most recent) did not quite
reach this far south. You need
drive north only a few miles,
however, before you go up over
a conspicuous rise and onto the
top of the cake.

When the contractors dug
down through 15 feet of loess
to put in the footings for Rob-
erts Theater, they found a thick
layer of peat. in it were the
well-preserved remains of an
ancient bog-forest — Wood,
bark, pollen grains and many
other clues.

When you walk beneath the
rtage in Roberts, you pass only
a foot above this soaking wet
compressed remnant of a larch-
spruce forest which thrived
here 24,000 years ago and may
even have witnessed the icy
edges of the two most recent
glaciers.

Only thousands of years later
did the climate become warm

 

 

 

 

 

Page Five

Samples of ancient wood (left), and of dried peat from the
buried forest which lies beneath the Fine Arts Building.

surface loess, however, ground-
water supplies can no longer
be taken [or granted.
Indiscriminaie te r t l l i Z a-
tlon has poisoned me water in
some pairs of Iowa to the ex-
tent that it's lethal to livestock.
Occasional spillage of pesticides
has seeped into other ground
watc r supplies, terminating
their useiulness indefinitely.

The Grinnell. city water, in-
cidentally, does not come from
one of these glacial gravel
beds. it is perhaps a fitting fi-
nal illustration of the interre-
latedness of the environment to
note that our drinking water
enters the ground, soft and
pure, just south of Hudson
Bay. Thence it trickles, through
the capillary interstices of
southward sloping bedrock un-
til, several decades later, it is
pumped from 2700 feet beneath
our city waterworks.

A few years ago, in browsing
through some old journals, 1
discovered I priceless pre-
chamber of commerce para-
graph. I shall close by quoting
it here, in the hope that it may
explain to you some subtle en-
vironmental interactions which
may have escaped you This is

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mick Hagar ’65 collecting some last—minute samples from be—
neath Roberts Theatre before the concrete floor was poured
in 1963.

and dry enough for establish-
ment of the tall grass prairies
which were here when man ar-
rived.

Here, then, is a moment in
the history of this place,
stratified and, at least for an-
uurer moment, preserved bo-
heath Ihe man-made rock of
the Fine Ans Center.

One oi the advantages ot the
great pockets of glacial gravel

beneath us is that they provide
good storage for our indispen-
sable ground—water. Like the

a description, from the 1909
iowa Geological Survey Report,
of the Grinnell water from the
rust deep wells:

“The water is said to be uni-
versally liked and very general-
ly used. Physicians report that
there has been a marked de-
crease in zyniotic diseases since
its introduction, and that it
seems to be beneficial in cases
of chronic rheumatisms It is at
lirst laxative and diuretic to
those unaccustomed to its use,
out the diuretic elfect ceasm

and the laxative effect is
changed to constipation. Pati-
ents with chronic diarrhoea can
not take it at all. it is one of the
strongest selenitic waters in tho
state.”

} New Houses
(Continued from Page 1)

whole campus are also plan-
ned.

Second largest of the new
houses is Conference House at
1205 Park SL, which has 13
girls.

The president of Conference
House is Catherine Jones, '69.
The house was started, she
says, “Io examine a liberal arts
education” and to determine
how well Grinnell is Iullilllnfl
that role.

The house, like Interracial,
was formed after Drr King's
assassmation. Because of the
shortage of time, the only meth-
od available to recruit girl:
was. according to Catherine, “ta
go around Ialking to people"

The house has already admin-
istered a test to 45 freshmen
(on were invited to participate),
which showed that G r i ii.“ e 11
freshmen were generally of a
less “practical" nature and
more idealistic than students of
other small Midwestern col—
iegest

The eight girls who make up
French House~which was Pine
Tree last year—applied to pl‘esie
dent Barbara Weitz, and were
chosen according to their ability
to speak French.

By the rules of the house,
French is to be spoken in all
the halls, though the girls are
allowed some respite in their
rooms, where they can speak
either English or French.

mooeooooooe
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2W3 ‘