Law Offices of 

 GEORGE L. INGRAHAM 



14 WaU Street 

 New York 



April 4, 1918. 



My dear Sir: 



I have for many years made my summer home on the Island 

 of Mt. Desert in the State of Maine, and have taken a great 

 interest in the development of the Island, being quite familiar 

 with the unique position that it holds upon the Atlantic Coast. 

 It is really a promontory of granite extending into the Atlantic 

 ocean, and it is, both geologically and in relation to animal and 

 vegetable life, the most interesting corner of the Atlantic sea- 

 board. These granite mountains extend right into the ocean, 

 and constitute the highest point of land on the immediate coast 

 between Eastport and Florida. Attempts to exploit it for com- 

 mercial purposes have threatened to destroy its unique charac- 

 ter. There are groves of white pine, besides interesting forest 

 tracts of other species, remaining on the island, and the com- 

 bination of mountains and lakes with these renders it in my 

 opinion a most important spot to be preserved. 



Years ago a number of public-spirited persons who habitu- 

 ally resort to the Island, procured, piece by piece, a conveyance 

 of the most essential portions of it to Trustees, in order to pre- 

 serve their beauty and their freedom to the public. Some two 

 years since this property was conveyed to the Government, which 

 accepted it for a national park. The Secretary of the Interior 

 has applied for an appropriation of ^50,000, for the improvement 

 and protection of this park, and if the object of those who have 

 contributed the property is to be attained, it is necessary that 

 there should be appropriated a sum of money by the Govern- 

 ment to preserve the wild life that now exists upon it, and to 

 make improvements. 



I conceive it to be of the greatest importance to the inhabi- 

 tants of the United States that there should be one reservation 

 on its eastern coast for the purpose of preserving the wild life 

 native to it, both animal and vegetable, and this can only be done 



