PARKS 



4505 



PARKS 



traces of several stages of prehistoric life, from 

 cave dwellings to carved stone temples. Here, 

 in a region of beautiful and unusual mountain 

 scenery, seventy-seven square miles since 1906 

 have been reserved for a park. Mesa Verde is 

 twenty-five miles from the Rio Grande South- 

 ern Railroad. 



Mount McKinley National Park, embracing 



nearly one and one-half million acres, is to be 



reserved as a great game refuge and breeding 



ground, for the purpose of preserving the big 



game of Alaska. The most prominent feature 



no park is Mount McKinley. which rears 



now-capped summit 20,300 feet above the 



sea the giant of the Alaskan Mountains. 



Mount Rainier National Park, in which stands 

 the tallest of the slumbering volcanoes of the 

 Cascade Mountains, the glacier-covered Mount 

 Rainier, is but four hours by rail and auto- 

 mobile from Tacoma, Wash. Nearly two miles 



NATIONAL PARKS IN THE UNITED' STATES 



mt Rainier 

 2. Crater Lake 

 mite 



4. General Grant 



5. Sequoia 



,-ier 



ilowstone 

 8. Mesa Verde 



;]]ys Hill 

 10. Wind Cave 

 1 1. Matt 



12. Hot Springs 



13. Casa Grande 



14. Lassen Volcanir 



15. Rocky Mountains 



16. Grand Canyon 



tin- truncated cone rises above the surround- 

 ing country. :ml nearly three miles (14,408 

 - of Puget Sound. In 

 the 321 square mil.- of the park then 

 forty-eight square mil. - of glacier-, from which 

 in ; - of steam and hot springs. 



At the base of the mountain is what John Muir 

 has lyvum," tin- richest 



-ul.ii;.Mi- iMrdi-n he ever saw. The park was 



:il|l||on/' -I HI 1899. 



Platt National Park, in southern Oklahoma, 

 umber of sulphur and other 

 MM diennl -piiiiL'-. Its area is one and one- 

 tin: , i not as well known 

 nor as popular a* nsas springs, for it 

 was estabh-h'. 1 only in 1906, this Oklahoma 

 H visited by thousands 



It is reached by branches of the Santa Fe and 

 the Frisco railroad systems. 



Rocky Mountains National Park, in Colorado, 

 is the easiest of the big parks for Eastern peo- 

 ple to visit, for it is but a day and a half from 

 Chicago, and only a morning's ride (fifty miles) 

 northwest of Denver. This park possesses 

 some of the most beautiful mountain scenery 

 on the continent; its eastern border is 8,000 

 feet above the sea, and within it the Rockies 

 tower a mile higher. Visitors to it may cross 

 the continental divide either on foot or on 

 horseback. These 358 square miles of rugged 

 nature were reserved by the government in 

 1915. 



Sequoia National Park, the home of Cali- 

 fornia's biggest and oldest trees, contains over 

 a million sequoias, 12,000 of which are more 

 than ten feet in diameter and older than the 

 Christian Era. This is a region of beautiful 

 mountain scenery, of cliffs and canyons and 

 tumbling torrents ; on the eastern border of the 

 park rises Mount Whitney, the tallest peak in 

 the United States. The park is not far from 

 the lines of the Santa Fe and the Southern 

 Pacific, a little over 200 miles from either Los 

 Angeles or San Francisco. It contains 237 

 square miles, set aside in 1890. 



Sullys Hill National Park, a tract of woods 

 and hills on the shore of Devils Lake, N. D., 

 contains some prehistoric ruins, but is visited 

 by very few people. Its one and a quarter 

 square miles were reserved in 1904. 



Wind Cave National Park, in the Black Hills 

 of South Dakota, possesses many miles of in- 

 teresting subterranean passages. Most of its 

 visitors come from Hot Springs, ten miles away. 

 This park was created in 1903, and includes 

 M square miles. 



Yellowstone National Park, the largest of the 

 parks, and the olde-t and most popular of the 

 big ones, is described elsewhere in this work. 

 Its geysers and mud volcanoes, its beautiful 

 canyon and waterfall, its wild animals and 

 birds attract thousands every year. The park 

 contains 3,348 square miles and was authot 

 m 1870. Travelers come directly to the V I- 

 lowstone from Salt Lake City on the Union 

 Pacific System, or from Minneapolis or the 

 coast on the Northern Pacific, or by an auto- 

 mobile ride from Cody, Wyo., on the Burling- 

 ton Route from Omaha. 



Yosemite National Park, described b 

 prop' contains both the 



l..\ely Yotemite Valley, with the famous El 

 Capitan Rock and Bridal Veil Falls, and the 



