Notes mid Correspondence 



199 



years since the Yosemite was first seen by a white man, several visitors 

 have since made a journey of several thousands of miles at large cost to 

 see it, and notwithstanding the difficulties which now interpose, hundreds 

 resort to it annually. Before many years, if proper facilities are offered, 

 these hundreds will become thousands and in a century the whole num- 

 ber of visitors will be counted by milHons. An injury to the scenery 

 so slight that it may be unheeded by any visitor now, will be one of 

 deplorable magnitude when its effect upon each visitor's enjoyment is 

 multiplied by these millions. 



IMPROVEMENTS AND PRECEDENTS 



The monetary value attached to any object of beauty, whether natural 

 or artificial, by public opinion, even by the opinion of the more intelli- 

 gent part of the community, is a strangely fluctuating thing. For how 

 many centuries were the most beautiful buildings of classic civilization 

 regarded by the best minds of Europe as having no value higher than 

 as stone quarries. What ruinously wasteful destruction was committed 

 with entire self-approbation in the name of "improvement" during 

 the period of the Renaissance upon the wonderful artistic inheritance 

 from the Gothic period. What splendid gardens of the Renaissance 

 were exultingly swept out of existence in the first flush of the fashion 

 for informal landscape that came with the growing appreciation of the 

 beauty of nature in the eighteenth century. The lesson of history in 

 this respect is unmistakable; a thing which many people have held to 

 be of great and peculiar beauty and which cannot be replaced, even if 

 the predominant men of the day fail to appreciate its beauty or are 

 inclined to think its beauty would be increased by "improvements," 

 ought not to be destroyed or radically altered except under pressure of 

 unavoidable necessity or after the most deliberate searching and humble 

 inquiry as to whether the predominate opinion of the day is really right 

 or is perhaps a passing phase colored by unconscious prejudice. 



The United States deliberately undertook to preserve the scenery of 

 the Yosemite National Park intact for the enjoyment of all future 

 generations. 



The people of the United States are not yet so poor that they cannot 

 afford to persevere in this purpose. 



To use the Hetch Hetchy as a San Francisco reservoir site would be 

 to abandon that purpose by indirection, and would establish a precedent 

 for abandoning the purpose of any and every park in case it conflicts 

 with any considerable utilitarian interests. 



