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Sierra Club Bulletin 



improving important lateral trails leading into it. The importance of 

 the work which has been illustrated by the trail already built justifies 

 asking for this amount, and if each member of the club will urge the 

 legislators to appropriate this amount it will be done without question. 

 We must express our great appreciation of the assistance which has been 

 rendered by Mr. W. F. McClure, State Engineer, who has control of 

 this fund, and also the able assistance of the officials of the Forest Ser- 

 vice who have carried on the actual construction work. W. E. C. 



Eastern In spite of all that has been written about the national parks, 

 Parks vs. it was rather amusingly evident at the recent National Parks 

 Western Conference in Washington that one question is not yet clear 

 to the general public in the eastern states — why the west 

 should be so disproportionately favored. One speaker even urged that the 

 parks in the future be established nearer the centers of civilization, hav- 

 ing never heard, apparently, of Mahomet's historic dilemma. More than 

 one speaker, indeed, showed that a clearer definition is needed between 

 a recreational park like the Interstate Palisades Park (an open space es- 

 tablished primarily for health and recreational purposes for a particular 

 center of population, where scenic attractions are the secondary consid- 

 eration) and a national park, whose situation is wholly determined by its 

 unusual natural beauty. The former is of interest only to an individual 

 city or state, the latter to the nation and world at large. In the present 

 stage of national park development only hopeless confusion could arise 

 out of any attempt to place parks of such local interest under national 

 control. M. R. P. 



