32 OUR NATIONAL PARKS. 



But they are by no means the only attractions of this national park, 

 which many frequenters declare nature has equipped best of all for 

 the joys and pleasures of mountain living. 



IDEAL FOR CAMPING OUT 



It is the ideal place to camp out. It is a country of magnificent 

 mountain scenery, easily accessible when once you are in it. Its 

 peaks are among the loftiest, its canyons among the deepest and most 

 romantic. Its summer temperatures are even and bracing. Its 

 summers are practically without rain. 



Across its borders north and east opens up a mountain region, on 

 the crest of the Sierra, of unexcelled grandeur. Mount Whitney, the 

 highest mountain in the United States, 14,501 feet, lies upon its east- 

 ern boundary. The Kings and the Kern Rivers have few scenic 

 equals. These and its many other rushing streams abound in trout 



X. 



THE HOT SPRINGS RESERVATION 



Special Characteristic: Curative Hot Springs Possessing Radio-Active 



Properties 



AS different, almost, as possible from the great scenic national 

 parks which we have been considering, but in its own par- 

 ticular way as extraordinary as any of them, the Hot Springs 

 Reservation in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas must be accorded 

 a distinguished place among American resorts of national char- 

 acter and ownership. The reservation is the oldest national 

 park, having received that status in 1832, forty years before the 

 wonders of the Yellowstone first inspired Congress with the idea that 

 scenery was a national asset deserving of preservation for the use and 

 enjoyment of succeeding generations. 



No aesthetic consideration was involved in this early act of national 

 conservation. Congress was inspired only by the undoubted, but at 

 that time inexplicable, power of these waters to alleviate certain 

 bodily ills. The motive was to retain these unique waters in public 

 possession in order that they should be available to all persons for all 

 time at a minimum, even a nominal, cost. 



IN THE HEART OF THE OZARKS 



The low, irregular mountain masses known as the Ozarks cover the 

 greater part of southern Missouri and overlap northern Arkansas, 

 where, in marked contrast with the surrounding plains, they become 

 higher, more rugged and heavily timbered. 



