100 * * * * if "Oh, Ranger!" 



In Yosemite, the whole history of the region from its formation by 

 the ancient upheavals of the earth through the eons of the glacial carv 

 ings to its present status, including the living conditions of the Indians, 

 the coming of the whites, and the early stagecoach days, is pictured by 

 means of exhibits in the fine, new fireproof museum, the gift of the 

 Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Foundation. Here in a few hours 

 can be visualized the whole story of Yosemite. Similar museums are to 

 be built in the other parks. 



Following the excursion through the museum, the visitor is ready for 

 the walking trips with the ranger naturalists to see and study Nature's 

 notes just as the scientists themselves have found them and from them 

 pieced together what is known of the story of the earth. 



Returning, for the moment, to the ranger naturalist and his party at 

 the upper end of Yosemite Valley, one of the party is saying, "I wish I 

 could see a glacier at work !" 



"You can do that, ma'am, if you can stay over a few days. Take the 

 trip up to Tuolumne Meadows and join a horseback party up to Lyell 

 Glacier. That is one of our best small living glaciers. It is hardly big 

 enough to tackle a job like carving Yosemite Valley, but it is grinding 

 away at the side of Mount Lyell, the highest peak in the park. You can 

 see the glacier dragging down boulders from the side of the mountain 

 and breaking them up or dumping them into upper Lyell Fork, where the 

 Tuolumne River starts. Of course, you'll have to stay a while up there 

 if you want to see much work done. Lyell Glacier only moves a few 

 feet each summer. If you selected a boulder at the top of the glacier to 

 watch, it would probably take a hundred or so years to get it down to 

 the bottom of the glacier. Glaciers are slow, but they are sure. 



"Of course, if you want to see some fast-working glaciers, you might 

 stop off in Mount Rainier National Park. The mountain is farther north 

 |'and is steeper, also the climate is more severe 

 ^ and much more snow falls in winter. Glaciers 

 move faster because there is more ice behind them 

 to make pressure. Some of those glaciers move 

 along fifty or sixty feet a year. Most of the move 

 ment is in the summer time when the ice is cracking 

 and grinding more rapidly. The Mount Rainier gla 

 ciers are harder workers than the Yosemite glaciers. 

 They carry so much rock and earth that they are black. 

 However, an industrious glacier has its disadvantages. The 

 Mount Rainier glaciers fill the streams with glacier milk and 

 that is bad for the fishing. You see, the glacier scoops up rocks 

 from the mountain side and scrapes them together as it slides 

 down the slope, grinding them to a fine powder, which the glacier 



