THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY COM 

 PLETES ITS GIFTS OF BIG TREES 



THE trustees and officers of the 

 National Geographic Society are 

 deeply gratified to announce to 

 members that The Society has been con- 

 tinuing its effort, begun in 19 16, to pre- 

 serve the Big Trees of Sequoia National 

 Park. 



By a final purchase in April, 1921, of 

 640 acres of land in Sequoia National 

 Park, these famous trees, oldest and most 

 massive among all living things, the only 

 ones of their kind in the world, have been 

 saved ; they will not be cut down and con- 

 verted into lumber. 



Were a monument of human erection 

 to be destroyed, it might be replaced ; but 

 had these aborigines of American forests 

 been felled, they would have disappeared 

 forever. The Big Trees could no more 

 be restored than could those other sur- 

 vivals of indigenous American life, the 

 red man and the buffalo, should they be- 

 come extinct. 



FIRST PURCHASE: MADE IN I916 



Members of the National Geographic 

 Society will recall that, in 1916, Congress 

 had appropriated $50,000 for the pur- 

 chase of certain private holdings in Se- 

 quoia National Park, but the owners 

 declined to sell for less than $70,000. In 

 that emergency the National Geographic 

 Society took the first step toward saving 

 the Big Trees by subscribing the remain- 

 ing $20,000.* Thus 667 acres were pur- 

 chased. The Society's equity in them was 

 conveyed to the government, and this 

 tract became the property, for all time, 

 of the American people. 



In 1920, inspired by the first benefac- 

 tion, three members of The Society gave 

 The Society sums equivalent to the pur- 

 chase price of $21,330, necessary to ac- 

 quire three more tracts, aggregating 609 

 acres. Thus the original area of Sequoias 

 saved from destruction was almost 

 doubled. 



At the request of the donors, this area 

 was presented to the government by the 



*See ''Our Big- Trees Saved," in the Na- 

 tional Geographic Magazine for January, 

 1917. 



National Geographic Society in June, 

 1920. This gift was made possible by the 

 generosity of Stephen T. Mather, Di- 

 rector of National Park Service, who 

 personally contributed $13,130; by D. E. 

 Skinner, of Seattle, who contributed 

 $5,000; and by Louis Titus, of Washing- 

 ton, D. C., who contributed $3,200. 



ONE HOLDING REMAINED IN PRIVATE 

 HANDS 



There still remained one other impor- 

 tant private holding in Sequoia National 

 Park amounting to 640 acres. Through 

 this tract, which is covered by a splendid 

 stand of giant sugar-pine and fir, runs the 

 road to Giant Forest. 



To acquire this approach to the unique 

 forest and to eliminate the last of the 

 private holdings in this natural temple, 

 the National Geographic Society and 

 friends of The Society, in 192 1, contrib- 

 uted $55,000, with which the tract was 

 purchased. On April 20, 192 1, it was 

 formally tendered in the name of The 

 Society, through Secretary of the In- 

 terior Albert B. Fall, to the American 

 people. 



This sum of $55,000 includes $10,000 

 from the tax fund of Tulare County, 

 California, within which the Sequoia Na- 

 tional Park is situated, a practical evi- 

 dence that the people closest to the park 

 are alive to the importance of our govern- 

 ment owning the land. 



The contributors and the amounts con- 

 tributed were : 



Research Fund of the National Geo- 

 graphic Society $5,000 



W. F. Chandler, Fresno, California.. 6,000 

 George F. Eastman, Rochester, New 



York 15,000 



William Kent, Kentneld, California.. 250 



Stephen T. Mather, Director National 



Park Service 14,000 



Charles W. Merrill, Berkeley, Cali- 

 fornia . 250 



James K. Moffitt, San Francisco 500 



John Barton Payne, former Secretary 



of Interior 2,000 



Julius Rosenwald, Chicago, Illinois... 1,000 

 Rudolph Spreckels, San Francisco.... 1,000 

 Special Tax Levy of Tulare County, 



California 10,000 



$55,000 



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