Notes and Correspondence. 199 



other needs of the park. The construction of a new Telford- 

 macadam road from El Capitan Bridge to the Sentinel Hotel, 

 along the south side of the Merced River, is now progressing 

 under an allotment of $34,100, part from revenues and part from 

 the regular appropriation, a percentage contract having been 

 entered into with Carter & McCauley therefor. The road from 

 El Portal to Pohono Bridge is still so rocky, dusty, narrow, tort- 

 uous, and precipitous as to make a drive over it a painful ordeal. 

 All the roads should be widened, metalled, and watered, and in 

 that order, though if the widening and metalHng are to be indefi- 

 nitely delayed it would be well to expend a few thousand dollars 

 in watering the roads as they are. 



The road from El Portal to the middle of the Yosemite Valley 

 is about IS miles long, half of which, when the work in progress 

 is completed, will be a very excellent road. The other half should 

 as soon as possible be widened, straightened, improved in grade, 

 metalled, and watered. In addition to the above there are about 

 IS miles of roads on the floor of the valley that are dusty and 

 rocky and should be rebuilt, parts of them being relocated in 

 order to follow more scenic routes. 



Visitors.-— Qttvjttn November i, 1908, and April 30, 1909, there 

 were 1,329 visitors to the Valley, and between May i and Sep- 

 tember 30, 1909, there were 11,853 visitors to the park, of which 

 number 471 did not come to the valley, an aggregate of 13,182, 

 representing an increase of so per cent over the previous year. 



The Neglect of Beauty in the Conservation Movement. 



Although the declaration of the first White House Conference of 

 Governors included a record of their agreement "that the beauty, 

 healthfulness, and habitability of our country should be preserved 

 and increased," it is much to be regretted that the official leaders 

 of the conservation movement — than which nothing is more im- 

 portant to the country — have never shown a cordial, much less 

 an aggressive, interest in safeguarding our great scenery, or in 

 promoting, in general, this part of their admirable program. 

 When the Appalachian Park reserve was first proposed, a prom- 

 inent member of Congress embodied his objection to it by saying 

 bluntly, "We are not buying scenery." To meet this criticism, 

 the friends of the bill, instead of boldly insisting upon the value 

 of great scenery, chose to lay stress exclusively upon the material 

 and economic side of the whole movement. The fact is, there is no 

 more popular and effective trumpet-call for the conservation 

 movement than the appeal to the love of beautiful natural scenery. 

 In this matter the idealists are more practical than the material- 

 ists, whose mistake is that they never capitalize sentiment. A 



