National Park Notes 



107 



Jurisdiction: The United States has exclusive jurisdiction over the 

 lands in Yellowstone Park within the State of Wyoming and also over 

 the lands within Glacier National Park, Mont., and Piatt National Park, 

 Okla., and Congress has provided a means of enforcement of the laws 

 and regulations pertaining thereto. In the other national parks, how- 

 ever, over which the laws of the States in which they are located obtain, 

 great difficulties in administration have been encountered, owing to the 

 fact that the department has no jurisdiction to punish offenses in viola- 

 tion of the regulations relating thereto, and especially in the matter of 

 preventing depredations on game and the selling of liquor therein. 



Conservation of wild animal life: The national parks, free as most of 

 them are from all public lumbering and private grazing enterprises, and 

 protected by law from hunting of any kind, alone have the seclusion and 

 other conditions essential for the protection and propagation of wild an- 

 imal life. Eventually they will become great public nature schools to 

 which teachers and students of animal life will repair yearly for investi- 

 gation and study. 



The enormous increase of wild animals in the Yellowstone since it be- 

 came a national park in 1872 points the way. Deer, elk, moose, bison and 

 antelope here abound in greater numbers no doubt than before the days 

 of the white man, and many of them have become almost as fearless of 

 man as animals in captivity. From here many State, county and city 

 parks have been supplied, under proper restrictions, with surplus ani- 

 mals for propagation purposes. When interfering private holdings are 

 extinguished in other national parks and United States laws made to 

 supersede State laws, these, too, will become centers of animal preser- 

 vation as effective as the Yellowstone. 



Increasing park area^: Congress so carefully cut the boundaries of 

 national parks to the express purpose for which each was created that, 

 in some instances, scenic features of the very first order were excluded. 

 In the careful study which the department has since made of each such 

 territory it has become apparent that, in several instances, outlying ter- 

 ritory should be added to these reservations. The most distinguished of 

 these instances is Sequoia National Park, the boundaries of which should 

 be extended to include the superb Kings Canon on the north and on the 

 east the Kern Cafion and the west slope and summit of Mount Whitney, 

 the highest mountain under the American flag; also other instances are 

 the Continental Divide for a few miles south of the new Rocky Moun- 

 tain National Park, together with several small outlying features of ex- 

 traordinary beauty. 



New national parks: Of the 10 or more scenic neighborhoods claim- 

 ing national-park status the most distinguished is the Grand Canon of 

 the Colorado, now classed as a national monument. This is one of the 

 greatest natural show places of the world. It demands and should have 

 immediate recognition and development as a national park. 



Other proposed national parks have scenic value and availability of 



