tee OU OO beOUN Bel Deb Helel N 19 
Book Reviews 
CONSERVATION: AN AMERICAN STORY OF CONFLICT AND ACCOMPLISHMENT, 
by David Cushman Coyle. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New 
Jersey. 1957, 282 pages, $5.00. 
Last year while working on a water resources project I needed some good 
basic information on the conservation movement. Exactly when did it start? 
How did it grow? Who were some of the men connected with carrying out 
the actual plans? About this time David Coyle’s Conservation was pub- 
lished. I soon learned the answers to my questions. More important, for the 
first time I was able to understand the reasons back of some of the intet- 
governmental squabbles over how to deal with our natural resources. The 
chapter on “Irrigation and Power” gave details about such controversies as 
the Pick-Sloan Plan for the Missouri river basin and the Central Valley 
Project in California. 
A large portion of the book is devoted to the history of the U.S. Forest 
Service and the role Gifford Pinchot played in making “Conservation” a 
workable ideal. As people interested in the preservation of bird life we 
hardly need to be told the value of wildlife conservation. Yet Mr. Coyle’s 
chapter on this subject contains some valuable arguments we can use to 
convince others that wilderness has more than the hard-to-pin-down aesthe- 
tic qualities. It has monetary value. That is a convincing argument for 
persons not interested in wildlife. As Mr. Coyle says: “In Congress money 
is apt to talk, and what it is saying louder and louder is that the outdoors 
has profit in it.” Conservation is an able reference book, written in clear 
style, with no wasted words. 
Jane Tester, 2029 Rockford St., Rockford, Ill. 
THE OTHER ILLINOIS, by Baker Brownell. Published by Duell, Sloan and 
Pearce, New York. 1958, 276 pages. 
While not essentially a book on bird study o1 conservation, this little 
volume is a treat to those travelers who may wish to know more about one 
of the least known areas of our state — southern Illinois. The book is a 
study of 31 southern Illinois counties with useful information on the people, 
history and resources from the days of the early French traders. 
Southwest of Carbondale lies Bald Knob Mountain, raising its bare top 
1,000 feet high. Since 1987, Easter sunrise services have been held there. 
Rural people from 34 towns and five states bought this 187-acre mountain- 
top, securing loans and donations of every size. The big cross they plan 
to build atop Bald Knob will be 250 feet high and 80 feet across and will 
cost over one million dollars. The earlier plan for a 500-foot cross was 
abandoned. The fact that it will be a lighted cross has raised questions in 
the minds of some conservationists over the serious possibility of large 
bird mortalities during migration seasons. Baker Brownell says that an 
average of $150 to $200 is received daily in the fund raising drive, which 
is supported by members of many faiths. 
Audubon travelers will be interested in the author’s comments on the 
geography of the area and especially in the chapter entitled “The Politics 
of Geese.” Brownell says that ‘“‘since the coming of the ten-mile Crab Or- 
