278 FOREST OUTINGS 



the others, changes in that totality of relations which constitutes the ecology 

 of the forest, is more difficult. 



Visibility has long been a subject of Forest Service research. In respect to 

 the location of fire towers and the maximum extent of the prospect from 

 towers, especially, striking advances have been made in recent years. One 

 thing that hand-picked CCC boys and other small, skilled groups of 

 relief workers have been doing for their country is to map it more graphic- 

 ally, beautifully, and accurately than ever before. Relief maps, done to 

 strict scale up and down as well as longitudinally, have been made of some 

 of the national forests. Such maps serve usefully in administrative planning; 

 they show the area not as flat and static, but in its actual living dimensions. 

 They are useful, again, in impressing upon forest visitors the actual lay of 

 the country. The people remember such maps more vividly, and are guided 

 by them more helpfully than by flat, gray maps. And in locating or relocat- 

 ing fire towers, so that almost no spot in the forest remains out of sight from 

 the guards, these maps have proved most helpful. It is possible on such a 

 relief map to place a flashlight bulb at height proportional to that of pro- 

 posed towers, and then by turning the light on, in a dark room, to plat out 

 in terms of light and shadow the range of visibility from that point. 



Invisibility, or a relative invisibility of Forest Service structures set up 

 for purposes of forest administration and forest recreation, is a newer 

 research problem in aesthetics and in forest architecture; and ever since 

 landscape architects were brought to the aid of forest recreation planning 

 good progress has been made. Once forest administrators, in their innocence, 

 painted all such structures green. It now becomes evident that against 

 almost any forest background, with its infinite variety of greens shot through 

 with light, flat green of any shade stands out in sharp contrast, inharmoni- 

 ously. The darker the color, generally speaking, the more the structure 

 seems to sink into the background, unobtrusively, gracefully. Most Forest 

 Service structures on sites recently developed are painted a chocolate 

 brown. On desert sites, and on sites intermediate between woods and desert, 

 other color combinations are tried with varying success. There remains need 

 for research, along with trial and error afield, in respect to forest and desert 

 light effects and a harmonious introduction of structures. 



