At the primitive beaver house it takes a look as it crosses the expanded brook upon the beaver dam. A fallen tree gives it a way across the river. In a gorge it hears the ouzel from the rocks pour forth his melody—joyous notes of happy, liquid song.

It crosses a moraine to examine the useful débris that the Ice King formed while he was sculpturing the mountains and giving lines to the landscape. Clouds bound for definite ports in the trailless sky adorn its realm with floating shadows. It passes a picturesque old landmark, a pine of a thousand years. In this one spot the ancient pine has stood, an observing spectator, while the seasons and the centuries flowed along. His autobiography is rich in weather lore, full of adventures, and filled with thrilling escapes from fires, lightning, and landslides. During his thousand years, strange travelers and processions have passed along. He often saw victor and victim and the endless drama of the wilderness.

The trail is followed by wild life, and along it the wild flowers fill the wild gardens. It has the spirit of the primal outdoors. It extends away ever to the golden age. Many a night this way across the earth is as thick with fireflies as the great Milky Way across the sky with stars. The moon, the white aspens, and the dark spruces pile it with romantic shades, and on a sunny day it is often touched by the fleeting shadow of an eagle in the sky.

This old acquaintance would have you carry your own pack, and, like your best friend, expects your best on every occasion. The trail compels you to know yourself and to be yourself, and puts you in harmony with the universe. It makes you glad to be living. It gives health, hope, and courage, and it extends that touch of nature which tends to make you kind. This heroic way conducted our ancestors across the ages. It should be preserved. It has for us the inspiration of the ages.

A dim trail led our wandering primeval ancestors out from the twilight. It was a trail ever winding, shadowy, and broken, but ever under the open sky and ever from "yesterday's seven thousand years." It had its beginning in the walks of beasts that prowled the solemn primeval forests. Over it our half-lost ancestors painfully advanced. A fallen tree was their first bridge and a floating log their first boat. They wondered at the strange alternating day and night at which we still wonder. With joy they watched the shining dawn, and with fear and dread they saw the dusk of dying day. They learned the endless procession of seasons. The mysterious movements of wind and water aroused their curiosity, and with childlike interest they followed the soft and silent movements of the clouds. The wide and starry sky appealed strangely, strongly, to their imagination, and in this luminous field of space their fancy found a local habitation and a name for the thousand earthly fears and factors of their lives. They dared the prairie, climbed the hills, but long kept close to the forest.

After hard and fearful ages—after "a million years and a day"—the camp-fire came at last. This fragment of the Immortal Sun conquered the cold and the night, and misery and dread gave way to comfort and hope. No more the aspen trembled. It became a dancing youth, while the strange, invisible echo was a merry hiding child. The fireflies changed to fairies, and Pan commenced to pipe the elemental melody of the wild.

Nature ever showed her pictures and interested her children in fairylands. Winter, cold and leafless; spring, full of song and promise; the generous wealth of summer; and autumn with its harvest and color, came and disappeared, and came again through all the mysterious years. Lightning, the echo, with roar and whisper of the viewless air, the white and lonely moon, the strange eclipse, the brilliant and fleeting rainbow,—Nature's irised silken banner,—the mystery of death, these seeds of thought bloomed into the fanciful, beautiful myths and legends that we know.

Once, like a web of joy, trails overspread all the wild gardens of the earth. The long trail is gone, and most others are cut to pieces and ruined. The few broken remnants are but little used.

The traveler who forgets or loses the trail will lose his way, or miss the best of life. The trail is the directest approach to the fountain of life, and this immortal way delays age and commands youth to linger. While you delay along the trail, Father Time pauses to lean upon his scythe. The trail wanders away from the fever and the fret, and leads to where the Red Gods call. This wonderful way must not be buried and forgotten.

APPENDIX

APPENDIX

A
ACT OF DEDICATION OF THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK

An Act to set apart a Certain Tract of Land lying near the Headwaters of the Yellowstone River as a Public Park.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,—That the tract of land in the Territories of Montana and Wyoming lying near the headwaters of the Yellowstone River and described as follows, to-wit: Commencing at the junction of Gardiner's River with the Yellowstone River and running east to the meridian, passing ten miles to the eastward of the most eastern point of Yellowstone Lake; thence south along the said meridian to the parallel of latitude, passing ten miles south of the most southern point of Yellowstone Lake; thence west along said parallel to the meridian, passing fifteen miles west of the most western point of Madison Lake; thence north along said meridian to the latitude of the junction of the Yellowstone and Gardiner's Rivers; thence east to the place of beginning, is hereby reserved and drawn from settlement, occupancy, or sale under the laws of the United States, and dedicated and set apart as a public park or pleasuring ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people; and all persons who shall locate, or settle upon, or occupy the same or any part thereof, except as hereinafter provided, shall be considered trespassers and removed therefrom.

Sec. 2. That said public park shall be under the exclusive control of the Secretary of the Interior, whose duty it shall be, as soon as practicable, to make and publish such rules and regulations as he may deem necessary or proper for the care and management of the same. Such regulations shall provide for the preservation from injury or spoliation of all timber, mineral deposits, natural curiosities or wonders within said park, and their retention in their natural condition.

The Secretary may, in his discretion, grant leases for building purposes, for terms not exceeding ten years, of small parcels of ground, at such places in said park as shall require the erection of buildings for the accommodation of visitors; all of the proceeds of said leases, and all other revenue that may be derived from any source connected with said park, to be expended under his direction in the management of the same and the construction of roads and bridle-paths, and shall provide against the wanton destruction of fish and game found within said park and against their capture or destruction for the purpose of merchandise or profit. He shall also cause all persons trespassing upon the same after the passage of this act to be removed therefrom, and generally shall be authorized to take all such measures as shall be necessary or proper to fully carry out the objects and purposes of this act.

Approved March 1, 1872.

Signed by:

B
THE NATIONAL PARKS AT A GLANCE

ARRANGED CHRONOLOGICALLY IN THE ORDER OF THEIR CREATION

(Number, 17; total area, 9776 square miles)

C
PROPOSED NATIONAL PARKS

D
NATIONAL MONUMENTS

ADMINISTERED BY THE INTERIOR DEPARTMENT

ADMINISTERED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

ADMINISTERED BY THE WAR DEPARTMENT[1]

E
DOMINION NATIONAL PARKS OF CANADA

(Number, 11; total area, 7945 square miles)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

National Park Publications issued by the Department of the Interior
(To be had from the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C.)

The National Park Service, Interior Department, is constantly issuing special publications that deal with particular phases of one or more National Parks. A bibliography may be had from the Department of the Interior giving a pretty complete list of all books, pamphlets, and magazine articles which contain information concerning any one or all National Parks. There are also a number of government publications which touch upon special phases of plant and animal life and geology. All issues of the Sierra Club Bulletin, Mazama, and The Mountaineer, contain more or less interesting matter that pertains to one or more National Parks.

Books Concerning Many National Parks
Nature and Science on the Pacific Coast

Books Concerning the Yellowstone National Park

Books Concerning the Rocky Mountain National Park

Books Concerning the Mesa Verde National Park

Books Concerning the Glacier National Park

Books Concerning Yosemite National Park

Books Concerning Mount Rainier National Park

Bibliography of the Dominion National Parks of Canada

Published by the Dominion Parks Branch, Department of Interior, Ottawa