NATIONAL PARKS AS AN ASSET 



23 



WHITNEY DOME 



The dome formation of the southern Sierra does not take the perfect form found in 

 Yosemite region. This dome is on the rim of the King River Canyon, California. 



head on Glacier Point, while more modest chalets are to 

 be dotted about in the obscurer spots to make accessible 

 the rarer beauties of the inner Yosemite. For with the 

 new Tioga road, which, through the generosity of Mr. 

 Stephen T. Mather and a few others, the Government 

 has acquired, there is to be revealed a new Yosemite, 

 which only John Muir and others of similar bent have 

 seen. This is a Yosemite far different from the quiet 

 incomparable valley. It is a land of forests, snow, and 

 glaciers. From Mount Lyell one looks, as from an 

 island, upon a tumbled sea of snowy peaks. Its lakes 

 many of which have never been fished, are alive with 



the 



trout. And through it foams the Tuo- 

 lumne River which in a mile drops a 

 mile, a water spectacle destined to 

 world celebrity. Meeting obstructions: 

 in its slanting rush, the water now and 

 then rises nearly perpendicularly, form- 

 ing upright foaming arcs sometimes 50 

 feet in height. These "water wheels," a 

 dozen or more in number, will be ac- 

 cessible next summer by a trail to be 

 built when the snow melts in June. 



While as the years have passed we 

 have been modestly developing the 

 superb scenic possibilities of the Yellow- 

 stone, nature has made of it the largest 

 and most populous game preserve in the 

 Western Hemisphere. Its great size, 

 altitude, its vast wilderness, its plentiful 

 waters, its favorable conformation of 

 rugged mountain and sheltered valley, 

 and the nearly perfect protection af- 

 forded by the policy and the scientific 

 care of the Government have made this 

 park, since its inauguration in 1872, the 

 natural and inevitable center of game 

 conservation for this nation. There is 

 something of significance in this. It is 

 the destiny of the national parks, if 

 wisely controlled, to become the public 

 laboratories of nature study for the 

 nation. And from them specimens may 

 be distributed to the city and State pre- 

 serves, as is now being done with the elk 

 of the Yellowstone which are too abun- 

 dant, and may be later with the antelope. 



If Congress will but make the funds 

 available for the construction of roads 

 over which automobiles may travel with 

 safety (for all the parks are now open to 

 motors) and for trails to hunt out the 

 hidden places of beauty and dignity, We 

 may expect that year by year these parks 

 will become a more precious possession 

 of the people, holding them to the fur- 

 ther discovery of America and making 

 them still prouder of its resources, 

 esthetic as well as material. 



T 



WOOD PRESERVERS' CONVENTION 



HE Twelfth Annual Convention of the Ameri- 

 can Wood Preservers' Association will be held 

 at Hotel Sherman, Chicago, January 18, 19 and 

 20, 1916. Delegates from the United States and Can- 

 ada will attend and it is expected many outsiders will be 

 drawn to the Convention by reason of their interest in 

 the conservation of our forest resources and the eco- 

 nomic utilization of wood. 



