STEEP TRAILS 



The great wilds of our country, once held to 

 be boundless and inexhaustible, are being rap- 

 idly invaded and overrun in every direction, 

 and everything destructible in them is being 

 destroyed. How far destruction may go it is 

 not easy to guess. Every landscape, low and 

 high, seems doomed to be trampled and harried. 

 Even the sky is not safe from scath — blurred 

 and blackened whole smnmers together with 

 the smoke of fires that devour the woods. 



The Shasta region is still a fresh unspoiled 

 wilderness, accessible and available for travel- 

 ers of every kind and degree. Would it not 

 then be a fine thing to set it apart Uke the 

 Yellowstone and Yosemite as a National Park 

 for the welfare and benefit of all mankind, pre- 

 serving its fountains and forests and all its 

 glad Ufe in primeval beauty? Very little of 

 the region can ever be more valuable for any 

 other use — certainly not for gold nor for 

 grain. No private right or interest need suffer, 

 and thousands yet imborn would come from 

 far and near and bless the coimtry for its wise 

 and benevolent forethought. 



