THE NATIONAL PARKS SYSTEM 237 



range: Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, with 

 its geysers more and greater than elsewhere in all 

 the world combined, its mud volcanoes and hot 

 springs, and tier upon tier of lava-buried forests 

 a heroic example of dying volcanism ; Mount Rainier 

 National Park, Washington, giant of the volcanic 

 Cascade Range, still warm in places, a spectacle of 

 sublime beauty; Crater Lake National Park, Ore- 

 gon, whose waters of extraordinary depth and color 

 fill the bowl left when Mount Mazama, which no 

 man has seen, collapsed within its own rim during 

 eruption; Lassen Volcanic National Park, Califor- 

 nia, its volcano a few years ago in eruption and 

 classed as active; and Hawaii National Park with 

 two of its three famous volcanoes spectacularly ac- 

 tive, and one crowned with a dead crater of enor- 

 mous size and uncanny quality of beauty. 



Yellowstone is, besides, a land of many waters, 

 source of large rivers, whose vividly painted canyons 

 and lofty abundant falls challenge comparison; also 

 it is a wild animal sanctuary unequalled. Mount 

 Rainier's greatest story is not volcanic but erosional, 

 disclosing many glaciers in advanced operation wear- 

 ing down the heights, with suggestions in its Ta- 

 tooch Range of a past which dumbs imagination. 



Mesa Verde, Colorado, records the intermediate 

 process of disintegration of mountains for upbuild- 

 ing of plains, its giant mesas worn from the Rockies 

 themselves seen passing in turn into the lower desert ; 

 it discloses, also, on forested mesa tops and in caves 



