DATE. NAME AND LOCATION. ACRES. 1907 1907 1907 1907 1907 *Chaco Canyon National Monument, New Mexico.. 20,629 5,120 1,280 160 640 1908 1908 1909 1909 1909 1909 1909 Oregon Caves National Monument, Oregon. * Tumacacori National Monument, Arizona. 10 300 608,640 600 480 15,840 210 2,740 160 57 981,681 160 5 13,883 1911 1911 Devils Postpile, California.. 800 The foregoing does not include the extensive list of National Forests and National Game Preserves. In our Report for 1910 will be found brief descriptions of the Hot Springs, Yellowstone, Sequoia, General Grant, Yosemite, Casa Grande, Mount Rainier, Crater Lake, Platt, Wind Cave, Sullys Hill, Mesa Verde, Montezuma Castle, John Muir, Grand Canyon, Jewel Cave, and Mount Olympus National Parks and Monuments; and in our Report for 1903 will be found a description of the Petrified Forests. [See plates 53, 54, 55, and 56.] A Bureau of National Parks Recommended. Although our system, if it can be called a system, of National Parks and National Monuments has developed to magnificent proportions, yet it has grown up in a haphazard and unrelated fashion until it has reached a stage which shows the need for a united administration under a single branch of the Government. Properly developed these parks may be made a great national asset. Every year, Americans spend millions of dollars abroad to visit scenes which can be matched or excelled within the United States. An enterprising railroad company has been advertising with an * Administered by Department of Interior. Administered by Department of Agriculture. Administered by Department of War. effective motto "See America first." There is excellent advice in this motto, and it embodies a phase of "conservation" admirably expressed by the Assistant Secretary of the Interior, the Hon. Carmi A. Thompson, in his address at the opening of the exhibition of National Park pictures under the auspices of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society as mentioned on page 98 preceding. He referred to the prevailing movement for the conservation of our natural resources our mines, forests and waters and for the conservation of landmarks and scenery, and said that if we could conserve for the United States the millions of dollars which are now spent by Americans abroad, by inducing Americans to visit the beautiful and wonderful places in our own country, we would be adding to the wealth of the Nation and effect ing as real a "conservation" as in any other direction. In behalf of his chief, Secretary Fisher, he represented the policy of the Interior Department with reference to National Parks to be constructive, and with this end in view, the Department believes that there should be created within it a Bureau of National Parks, under the supervision of which should be brought all the National Parks and Monuments now under different jurisdictions. This Bureau should be under the care of a man specially qualified for the position - a man who already has a reputation in this line, one who has the public confidence, who can go to Congress for money with the assurance that his requests will be respected, and who can be trusted to spend the money properly when it is granted. The Bureau should have the best engineers, landscape architects and foresters. Its duty should be to make the parks accessible by roads, trails, etc., and, by encouraging the enjoyment of the parks by the public to whom they belong, "make it fashionable to stay home" in the United States, as Secretary Thompson expressed it. Such a Bureau would also be of great assistance to States and Cities and would co-operate with them in their undertakings for State and City Parks. President Taft heartily approves of the idea of such a bureau. In a message to Congress February 2, 1912, he said: "I earnestly recommend the establishment of a Bureau of National Parks. Such legislation is essential to the proper management of those wondrous manifestations of nature, so startling and so beautiful that everyone recognizes the obligations of the Government to preserve them for the edification and recreation of the people. The Yellowstone Park, the Yosemite, the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, the Glacier National Park, and the Mount Rainier National Park and others furnish appropriate instances. In only one case have we made anything like adequate preparation for the use of a park by the public. That case is the Yellowstone National Park. Every consideration of patriotism and the love of nature and of beauty and of art requires us to expend money enough to bring all these natural wonders within easy reach of our people. The first step in that direction is the establishment of a responsible bureau which shall take upon itself the burden of supervising the parks and of making recommendations as to the best method of improving their accessibility and usefulness." The Interior Department has drafted a bill, known as the Davidson Bill in the House of Representatives (H. R. 16090) and the Smoot Bill in the Senate (S. 3463) creating a Bureau. The bill provides for a Superintendent of National Parks, to be appointed by the President. If this bill becomes a law, the Bureau of National Parks will become one of the great bureaus of the Department of the Interior. Glacier National Park. Among the recently created National Parks, Glacier National Park is one of the most interesting. This park was created by act of Congress, approved May 11, 1910. It is located in northwestern Montana and embraces over 1,400 square miles of the Rocky Mountains, extending north from the main line of the Great Northern Railway to the Canadian Border. It is bounded on the east by the Blackfect Indian Reservation and on the west by the Flathead River. Its average length is sixty miles and its average width fifty miles. Its attractions for tourists and scientists are unsurpassed in the world. It has been called the Switzerland of America. Within its bounds are sixty active glaciers more than in all Europe. From these glaciers issue the streams which feed a multitude of beautiful lakes, including Lake McDonald, Lake St. Mary's, Lake Louise, Iceberg Lake, Red Eagle Lake, Kintla Lake, Bowman Lake, Kootenai Lake, Logging Lake, Quartz Lake, Harrison Lake and Two Medicine Lake. An impressive feature of the park is Avalanche Basin, a remarkable U-shaped valley eight miles from Lake McDonald. Nestling in the valley below the basin is Avalanche Lake into which dash cataracts and cascades originating thousands of feet above. The principal glaciers are Blackfoot, Grinnell, Harrison, Pumpelly, Red Eagle, Sperry and Chaney, which range from a few hundred yards to several miles in extent. The active operation of the glaciers is manifest in the accumulations of earth pushed up along their fronts and there one can observe the processes of nature which thousands of years ago, in other parts of the country, piled the terminal moraines and excavated the valleys. Glacier Park can be reached from either Midvale, Mont., or Belton, Mont., on the Great Northern Railway. Midvale is the entrance to the portion on the east side of the mountains, and is the starting point for a line of permanent camps extending into the wilderness. Belton is the entrance to the western portion. Between June 1 and October 1, 1911, there were 4,000 visitors to the park, the majority entering by way of Belton. Natural Bridges National Monument. Another National Park, of which we have previously given no description, is the Natural Bridges National Monument in Utah. This reservation, comprising 2,740 acres, was created in 1909, and is characterized, as its title implies, by the natural stone archways which have been formed by under-cutting streams in ancient geological times. The Natural Bridge of Virginia, long one of the scenic curiosities of the Atlantic coast states, sinks into insignificance when compared with some of the gigantic spans of the Natural Bridges National Monument. Mr. W. W. Dyar, in an article entitled "The Colossal Bridges of Utah in the Century Magazine (new series, volume 46, page 510, etc.), speaking of the Caroline Natural Bridge, says: "This bridge measures 208 feet 6 inches from buttress to buttress across the bottom of the canyon. From the surface of the water to the center of the arch above is a sheer height of 197 feet, and over the arch at its highest point the solid mass of sandstone rises 125 feet farther to the level floor of the bridge. A traveler crossing the canyon by this titanie masonry would thus pass 322 feet above the bed of the stream. The floor of the bridge. is 127 feet wide, so that an army could march over it in columns of companies, and still leave room at the side for a continuous stream of artillery and baggage wagons." Another, called the Augusta Natural Bridge, is probably the most wonderful formation of its kind in the world. Mr. Dyar says: "Here, across a canyon measuring 335 feet 7 inches from wall to wall, she has thrown a splendid arch of solid sandstone, 60 feet thick in the central part and 40 feet wide, leaving underneath it a clear opening 357 feet in perpendicular height. The lateral walls of the arch rise perpendicularly nearly to the top of the bridge, when they flare suddenly outward, giving the effect of an immense coping or cornice overhanging the main structure 15 or 20 feet on each side, and extending with the greatest regularity and symmetry the whole length of the bridge. A large rounded butte at the edge of the canyon wall seems partly to obstruct the approach to the bridge at one end. The majestic proportions of this bridge may be partly realized by a few comparisons. Thus, its height is more than twice and its span more than three times as great as those of the famous natural bridge of Virginia. Its buttresses are 118 feet farther apart than those of the celebrated masonry arch in the District of Columbia, known as Cabin John Bridge, a few miles from Washington City, which has the greatest span of any masonry bridge on this continent. This bridge would overspan the Capitol at Washington and clear the top of the dome by 51 feet. And if the loftiest tree in the Calaveras Grove of giant sequoia in California stood in the bottom of the canyon its topmost bough would lack 32 feet of reaching the underside of the arch." These are only specimens of the wonderful natural architecture of this park. [See plate 54.] Death of a Yellowstone Park Pioneer. Cities, States and the Nation seldom realize to whom they are indebted for their blessings. Many influences, started by men and women who are either obscure or modest ripen into noble fruition and the authors are little remembered. For this reason it is worth while to make a brief memorandum, at least, of the passing away of one of the pioneers of the Yellowstone National Park, Nathaniel Pitt Langford, who died in St. Paul, Minn., October 18, 1911. Mr. Langford was born August 9, 1832, in Westmoreland, Oneida County, New York. After obtaining a common school education, he became a clerk in a bank in Utica. In 1854 he went to St. Paul. In the west he held various posi |