"December as pleasant as May,"

there are few pleasanter localities in which to spend the entire year. It is a climate for thinking and doing. Spring and autumn are delightful beyond the power of description, and the heat of midsummer is tempered by the myriad lakes which dot the surrounding country. In midwinter the thermometer takes an occasional downward plunge which sadly disarranges the record of averages, but for four days out of every five between December and March the sun shines gloriously through an atmosphere of mountain brilliancy. Then there is in the air a hidden food of life, upon which has fed the strenuous race of men which within the short space of one life has builded two great cities where none were before.

DES MOINES
IOWA'S CAPITAL CITY

By FRANK I. HERRIOTT

THE beginnings of the city of Des Moines are not shrouded in romance or shadowy tradition. Thrilling episode and epoch-making events do not abound in her history. Cannon have never thundered against the gates of the city, nor hostile armies marched and counter-marched within her environs. Not even the blood-curdling war-whoop of the Indian ever struck terror into the hearts of her pioneers. Yet the story of the capital city of Iowa is neither prosaic nor uninteresting. Her origin and early history typify the beginnings of civilized life throughout almost the entire State of Iowa; and since the seat of government was transferred to the city in 1857, her history is in epitome the history of the great commonwealth of which she is the capital.

The origin of the city's name is a moot question among antiquarians. Popular etymology has derived Des Moines from the early associations of Trappist monks at or near the mouth of the river,—la rivière des Moines: but Dr. Elliot Coues regarded this as spurious etymology. Some local historians have contended that the name arose from the fact that the valley of the Des Moines River was inhabited by the Mound Builders: numerous mounds were found in what is now the heart of the city; hence, the "river of the mounds." The French explorer Nicollet ascribes its origin to the Algonquin name Moingoinan, and the earliest map showing the journeys and discoveries of La Salle, Joliet, and Marquette designate the river by the Algonquin name. In later times the French voyageurs and traders clipped the word, for we find Des Moins, De Moin, De Moyen, Demoin, Demoir and sometimes Demon. The French settlers probably had in mind the great "middle region" between the Mississippi and the Missouri when they referred to the De Moyen or Des Moines.

[FORT DES MOINES IN 1844.]