NATIONAL ACADEMY BIOGRAPHICAL "MEMOIRS VOL. VIII 



by Indians, who, displaced from lower lands by the advance 

 of white settlers and impelled to hunt fur-bearing animals for 

 trade, deliberately set fire to the forests for the purpose of 

 driving the game; therefore the Indians should be removed 

 from the forested areas. | The burning of forests in the high- 

 lands of the arid region has been on a "scale so vast that the 

 amount taken from the lands for industrial purposes sinks by 

 comparison into insignificance" (15). Powell tells that he 

 had "witnessed two fires in Colorado, each of which destroyed 

 more timber than all that used by the citizens of that State 

 from its settlement to the present day, and at least three in 

 Utah, each of which has destroyed more timber than that 

 taken by the people of the Territory since its occupation. . . . 

 Everywhere throughout the Rocky Mountain region the ex- 

 plorer, away from the beaten paths of civilization, meets great 

 areas of dead forests ; ... in seasons of great drought 

 the mountaineer sees the heavens filled with clouds of 

 smoke. . . . If the fires are* prevented, the renewal by 

 annual growth will more than replace that taken by man. . . . 

 No limitation to the use of the forests need be made" (17). 

 "Once protected from fires, the forests will increase in extent 

 and value. This protection, though sure to come at last, will 

 be tardy" (18). It is interesting to note in this connection 

 Powell's unqualified statement that "fire is the immediate cause 

 of the lack of timber on the prairies" (16), and the emphasis 

 that he gave to the occurrence of large burned areas in the 

 East at the time of the discovery of America. He wrote sev- 

 eral years later: "When the lands [in the East] were plowed 

 the fires were stopped, and vast regions that were prairies at 

 that time are now forest-clad. Today [1895] the forests of 

 the United States are somewhat more extensive than they were 

 at the landing of Columbus" (Nat. Geogr. Monogr., 71). 



In classifying all the lands between the highland timber 

 areas and the lowland irrigable areas as pasturage lands, 

 Powell did not overlook that certain districts are really deserts, 

 too low for timber, out of reach of irrigation, and too dry for 

 pasture. He wrote: "In very low altitudes and latitudes the 

 grasses are so scant as to be of no value ; here the true deserts 

 are found. These conditions obtain in southern California, 



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