NATIONAL PARK NOTES 



9 



The National Park Service 



The National Park Service was organized as the ninth bureau of the 

 Department of the Interior immediately upon the approval of the de- 

 ficiency appropriation act of April 17, 1917, which made funds available 

 for its establishment. To quote from the act, the functions of the new 

 service are to : 



. . . promote and regulate the use of the Federal areas known as 

 national parks, monuments and reservations hereinafter specified 

 by such means and measures as conform to the fundamental pur- 

 pose of said parks, monuments, and reservations, which purpose is 

 to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and 

 the wild life therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same 

 in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired 

 for the enjoyment of future generations. 



The officers of the new service are: Director, Stephen T. Mather of 

 Illinois; assistant director, Horace M. Albright of California; chief 

 clerk, Frank W. Griffith of New York. Seventeen national parks and 

 twenty-two national monuments are now under the jurisdiction of the 

 National Park Service. In acreage the national parks total 6,254,568 

 acres ; the national monuments, 91,824 acres. 



Before quoting from the extensive and admirable "Report" for 1917 

 made to the Secretary of the Interior by Horace M. Albright, acting di- 

 rector, we would like to call the attention of our members to the scope 

 and difficulty of the task that has confronted Mr. Albright this year. A 

 serious and prolonged illness of Mr. Mather's threw the whole burden 

 of organization and management upon Mr. Albright's shoulders, at a 

 time, too, when every executive department and every branch of Gov- 

 ernment service was concentrated upon the war. In expressing our great 

 happiness in Mr. Mather's recovery and return to the work into which 

 he has put so much thought and energy, we wish also to congratulate him 

 upon his assistant, and to hope that they may continue to work together 

 in the park service through many administrations yet to come. 



Report of the Director of the National Park Service, 1917 



TRAVEL 



The total travel to the National Parks for the season was 487,368. . . . 

 I shall not comment upon the national monument travel further than to 

 state that it has materially increased. . . . The enormous increase in 

 National Park patronage does not represent merely an increase in local 

 travel; that is, travel from various park States and immediately adja- 



