Beginning of Essay
Picking research projects, sometimes for me, is an agonizing problem that eventually turns into an enlightening experience; what was to be my American Humanities research project was just such an experience. I had preliminarily thought I'd look into cultural myth ....

Middle of Essay
.... The Wonder City. Interestingly, Kemp started the book with a statement that really piqued my curiosity. "Indians who once roamed the area had known that the spring had medicinal qualitites, but, with characteristic reticence and secretiveness, they did not reveal this fact to the white man. They held the secret in their hearts as they gave ground and moved westward from the surging horde of white immigrants . . . " (1). To my mind, this sounded like a fallacy; how did they know the Indians knew if they never told anyone? Could I find out if the Indians considered the water medicinal? Could I prove this statement false? Farther on in the book ....