American Big-Game Hunting 



aside by presidential proclamation. Most of them 

 include rough timbered mountain lands, unfit for 

 cultivation or for settlement. They will serve by 

 far their most useful purpose as timber reservations, 

 natural reservoirs which will yield year after year a 

 never-failing supply of water. Mr. Noble had the 

 wisdom and the independence to lead public opinion 

 rather than to follow it, and he set an example 

 which it is hoped his successors will emulate. 



Nor was he content to stop here. Realizing the 

 rapidity with which commercial greed was sweep- 

 ing out of existence important marine species of the 

 Northwest, he caused Afognak Island, in Alaska, to 

 be set aside as a perpetual reservation for salmon 

 and sea-lions, and planned the establishment on 

 Amak Island of a reservation for walrus, sea-otter, 

 and sea-lions, and of still another on the Farallones 

 for sea-lions and sea-fowl. These two refuges for 

 the great marine mammals of our western seas have 

 not yet been established, but the good work set on 

 foot by Mr. Noble should be continued to com- 

 pletion with as little delay as possible. 



Much more remains to be done. We now have 

 these forest reservations, refuges where the timber 

 and its wild denizens should .be safe from de- 

 struction. What are we going to do with them? 

 The mere formal declaration that they have been 

 set aside will contribute but little toward this safety. 

 It will prevent the settlement of the regions, but 



328 



