14 THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE 



of the accepted qualities of parkhood. . . . President Wil- 

 son's proclamation of August 3, 1918 (40 Stat. L., 1818), 

 declaring it a national monument, does little more than con- 

 firm one of several opinions. 



Projects are now on foot looking to the creation of several 

 additional parks. Prominent among these proposed parks 

 are the region including the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, a 

 large area in the sand dune region of Indiana bordering on 

 Lake Michigan, and the region in Utah surrounding Bryce Can- 

 yon. It is also proposed to enlarge the Yellowstone by taking 

 in a large territory south of the park — ^the famous country of 

 the Three Tetons and Jackson's Hole — and Sequoia by an- 

 nexing the contiguous area, which contains the canyons of the 

 King and Kern rivers and about seventy miles of the crest 

 of the Sierra Nevada. This region is notable for scenic gran- 

 deur and for the location within its confines of Mount Whit- 

 ney, the highest peak in the continental United States. It 

 is also the only known habitat of a unique and peculiarly 

 "game" species of trout recently named after the late Presi- 

 dent Roosevelt. This project is regarded by the National 

 Park Service as the most meritorious of all the projects for 

 park enlargement so far put forward. 



By Executive Orders of July 8, 191 8 (No. 2905) and Jan- 

 uary 28, 1921 (No. 3394), the area of the proposed addition to 

 the Yellowstone was set aside and reserved from settlement un- 

 der authority of the act of June 25, 1910 (36 Stat. L., 847), as 

 amended by the act of August 24, 1912 (37 Stat. L., 497). 

 This prevents the acquisition of any private interests in the 

 tract reserved — except mining claims. The total area with- 

 drawn covers 844,800 acres, of which only slightly over 5cxx) 

 acres are patented or in process of being patented. 



The National Park Service Act constitutes the organic law of 

 the park system. The policy of the National Park Service 

 operating under it was set forth on May 13, 19 18, by the 

 late Secretary Lane in a letter to Director Mather, in which he 

 said: 



