OUR NATIONAL PARKS. 7 



or scent of man; but that again is because the mountain Hon, being 

 predatory, is the only animal in our national parks that is hunted. 

 The national parks cover a great area, 4,665,966 acres in all. If 

 all were put together it would mean an area of 7,290 square miles, as 

 large, nearly, as the State of New Jersey. The Yellowstone National 

 Park alone contains more than 3,300 square miles, and is as big as 

 many of the independent European principalities that warred with 

 each other for centuries before the genius of Bismarck united them 

 into a great empire. 



GENERAL INFORMATION BULLETINS 



The following descriptions of some of our national parks are not 

 intended to be exhaustive. In each, those characteristics are em- 

 phasized which individualize the park, distinguishing it from others. 

 Any person who wishes to know more about any national park than 

 is here available, who wishes, for instance, to know the particular 

 traveling and living facilities in each and the expenses of a visit 

 thereto, should write to the Secretary of the Interior for the Gen- 

 eral Information Bulletin of the particular national park in which 

 he is interested. It will be sent free. 



II 

 THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK 



Special Characteristic: Readable Records of Glacial Period 



THE Rocky Mountain National Park is in Colorado, about seventy 

 miles by road or rail northwest of Denver. Find Longs Peak 

 on a good map and you will have the center of the 360 square miles 

 of snow-topped mountains which constitute the park. 



These mountains are part of the Continental Divide, which is the 

 name given to the irregular line of highest land running north and 

 south through North America which divides the waters flowing east- 

 ward into the Atlantic Ocean from those flowing westward into the 

 Pacific. For this reason the people of Colorado call their mountains 

 the top of the world. They are scarcely that, for the Himalaya 

 Mountains in Asia and the Andes in South America are, among others, 

 much higher; but for the United States this picturesque figure of 

 speech is sufficiently near the truth. 



This national park is certainly very high up in the air. The summer 

 visitors who live at the base of the great mountains, principally at 

 the beautiful eastern gateway, a little valley town of many hotels 

 which is called Estes Park, are 8,000 feet, or more than a mile and 

 a half, above the level of the sea; while the mountains rise precipi- 



