The Forester*. 



Vol. V. 



MAY, 1899 



No. 5. 



The Mount Rainier National Park. 



Compiled partly from official data hitherto unpublished. 

 [Published by permission of the Director of the U. S. Geological Survey.! 



The first suggestion for the establish- 

 ment of a Rainier National Park came 

 from two widely traveled foreigners. In 

 1883 they visited Mount Rainier, the one 

 Prof. Karl Zittel, of Munich, a geologist 

 familiar with all the aspects of Europe, 

 and the other the Hon. James Bryce, a 

 member of the English Alpine Club, and" 

 a traveler whose mountaineering con- 

 quests included Ararat. In a joint letter 

 these gentlemen wrote : 



"The scenery of Mount Rainier is of rare 

 and varied beauty. The peak itself is as noble 

 a mountain as we have ever seen in its lines 

 and structure. The glaciers which descend 

 from its snow fields present all the characteris- 

 tic features of those in the Alps, and though 

 less extensive than the ice streams of the 

 Mount Blanc or Monta Rosa groups, are in 

 their crevasses and serracs equally striking, 

 and equally worthy of close study. We have 

 seen nothing more beautiful in Switzerland or 

 Tyrol, in Norway or in the Pyrenees, than the 

 Carbon River glacier and the great Puyallup 

 glaciers; indeed, the ice in the latter is unusu- 

 ally pure, and the crevasses unusually fine. 

 The combination of ice scenery with woodland 

 scenery of the grandest type, is to be found 

 nowhere in the Old World, unless it be in the 

 Himalayas, and, so far as we know, nowhere 

 else on the American Continent. * * * 

 We may, perhaps, be permitted to express a 

 hope that the suggestion will at no distant date 

 be made to Congress that Mount Rainier should, 

 like the Yosemite Valley and the geyser region 

 of the Upper Yellowstone, be reserved by the 

 Federal Government and treated as a National 

 park." 



The hope expressed by these foreign- 

 ers found no response in legislative ac- 

 tion until the winter of 1895. Then a 

 memorial prepared by a committee repre- 

 senting the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, the Geological 

 Society of America, the Sierra Club of 

 California, and the Appalachian Moun- 

 tain Club, was presented to the Senate 

 by Mr. Squire, the Senator from Wash- 

 ington. In 1897, the action of which 



this memorial was a feature, led to a bill 

 designed to establish a National Park, 

 which passed both Houses of Congress, 

 but failed of signature by the President. 

 In the winter of 1899 this bill, with 

 slight modifications, was again intro- 

 duced, passed both Houses, and receiv : 

 ing the signature of the President, be- 

 came a law on March 2. 



The bill provides for a National Park 

 eighteen miles square, designed to in- 

 clude the glacial system of Mount Rai- 

 nier, its parks, and some part of the sur- 

 rounding forests. The boundaries are 

 laid off according to township and range 

 lines of the Government Land Survey, 

 beginning at a point three miles east of 

 the northeast corner of T. 17 N., R. 6 E. 

 of the Willamette meridian. The square, 

 eighteen miles on a side, is broken on the 

 eastern line to an unknown extent by the 

 provision that : " In locating the said 

 easterly boundary, wherever the summit 

 of the Cascade Mountains is sharply 

 and well defined, the said line shall fol- 

 low the said summit where the said sum- 

 mit line bears west of the easterly line 

 as herein determined." 



It is provided that the National Park 

 shall be under the exclusive control of 

 the Secretary of the Interior, whose duty 

 it shall be to make and publish such 

 rules and regulations as he may deem 

 necessary for the management of the 

 same. The Secretary may, in his dis- 

 cretion, grant parcels of ground for the 

 erection of buildings for the accommo- 

 dation of visitors, and all the proceeds 

 of the leases, and all other revenues that 

 may be derived from any source,, con- 

 nected with the Park, are to be expended 

 under his direction in the management 

 of the same and for the construction of 

 roads and bridle paths therein. Rights 

 of way may be granted to railway or 



