100 OUR NATIONAL PARKS 



graphy, and by the arrangement of the best soil- 

 beds in intricate patterns like embroidery ; for 

 these soilbeds are the moraines of ancient glaciers 

 more or less modified by weathering and stream 

 action, and the trees trace them over the hills 

 and ridges, and far up the sides of the moun- 

 tains, rising with even growth on levels, and 

 towering above one another on the long rich 

 slopes prepared for them by the vanished gla- 

 ciers. 



Had the Sierra forests been cheaply accessible, 

 the most valuable of them commercially would 

 ere this have fallen a prey to the lumberman. 

 Thus far the redwood of the Coast Mountains 

 and the Douglas spruce of Oregon and Wash- 

 ington have been more available for lumber 

 than the pine of the Sierra. It cost less to go a 

 thousand miles up the coast for timber, where 

 the trees came down to the shores of navigable 

 rivers and bays, than fifty miles up the moun- 

 tains. Nevertheless, the superior value of the 

 sugar pine for many purposes has tempted capi- 

 talists to expend large sums on flumes and rail- 

 roads to reach the best forests, though perhaps 

 none of these enterprises has paid. Fortunately, 

 the lately established system of parks and reser- 

 vations has put a stop to any great extension of 

 the business hereabouts in its most destructive 

 forms. And as the Yosemite Park region has 

 escaped the milhnen, and the all-devouring 



