REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 13 



ings of which little has been hitherto known; the most striking of 

 these were finely constructed towers, castles, and great houses, the 

 walls of which have fine masonry, rising in some instances 25 feet 

 high. They may be instanced as the best-preserved examples of 

 Indian stone houses north of Mexico. Three clusters of these re- 

 markable constructions in southwestern Utah are specially note- 

 worthy, containing in all 11 different buildings, the majority of 

 which are still, after centuries of wear, in nearly the same condition 

 as when deserted by the aboriginal builders. Many evidences of their 

 prehistoric character were gathered. The name of the race to which 

 their builders belonged is no longer known, but the memory of them 

 still survives in dim legends of descendants living many miles awaj\ 

 A visit to these towers well supplements one to the Mesa Verde, and 

 broadens one's knowledge of the variety of buildings which stood in 

 the desert during the most flourishing epoch of North American 

 architecture of the past. As a sequel to the explorations carried on 

 by the Smithsonian in these remarkable monuments, the Director of 

 the Public Park Service of the Department of the Interior, recog- 

 nizing their educational value for scholars and tourists, has taken 

 steps to have them set aside from the public domain and placed under 

 the care of the Superintendent of the Mesa Verde Park for per- 

 manent preservation. 



NATIONAL PARKS EDUCATIONAL COMMITTEE. 



On June 26, 1918, at a meeting held at the Smithsonian Institution 

 there was organized the National Parks Educational Committee. 

 Dr. Charles D. Walcott, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 

 was chosen chairman, former Representative William Kent, of Cali- 

 fornia, vice chairman, Henry B. F. Macfarland, of Washington, 

 chairman of the executive committee, and Robert Sterling Yard, 

 secretary. The membership includes representatives of universities, 

 institutions, and public-spirited associations East and West, through 

 whose cooperation it will present a front of many influential units. 



The need of this organization grew out of the rapid growth of 

 public interest in our national parks, due to the recent realization 

 of their supreme qualities. It is a safe statement that there is no 

 other cause so popular in America to-day that is not a war cause. 

 The limitation of governmental functions practically to the physical 

 development of the national parks leaves the gathering of their 

 enormous potential harvests of education and appreciation to the 

 people themselves ; it is to organize these departments of higher en- 

 joyment, to give impetus to the art and literature of outdoors, to 

 popularize natural science, and to encourage outdoor living that the 

 committee is established. 



