Protection of the Yellowstone Park 



diminish this evil. Of course, it still contin- 

 ued in small degree, but those who indulged 

 in it had to be at great pains to conceal their 

 operations, and this of itself greatly reduced 

 the destruction. I personally engaged in a 

 long controversy with a reverend despoiler, 

 whom I detected in the act of breaking off 

 a specimen. A large part of his defense was 

 that, as I had on no uniform, he did not know 

 it was necessary to be watchful and careful in 

 my presence. 



The names of the vain glared at one from 

 every bit of formation, and from every place 

 where the ingenuity of vanity could place 

 them. Primarily I ordered that every man 

 found writing his name on the formations 

 should be sent back and made to erase it. I 

 once sent a man from the Mammoth Springs 

 and once a man from the Canon to the Upper 

 Basin to scrub his autograph from the rocks; 

 and one morning a callow youth from the 

 West was aroused at 6:30 a. m. at the Foun- 

 tain Hotel and taken, with brush and soap, to 

 the Fountain Geyser, there to obliterate the 

 supposed imperishable monument of his folly. 

 His parents, who were present, were delighted 

 with the judgment awarded him, and his fel- 



389 



