time and became the lofty plateau of to-day, many were the changes by
which its surface became modified. Chief of these was the erosion which
has washed its levels thousands of feet below its potential altitude and
carved it so remarkably. But it also became a field of wide-spread
volcanic activity, and lavas and obsidians are constantly encountered
among its gravels, sands, and shales. Many also are the cones of dead
volcanoes.
Capulin Mountain in northeastern New Mexico near the Colorado line is a
very ancient volcano which retains its shape in nearly perfect
condition. It was made a national monument for scientific reasons, but
it also happily rounds out the national parks' exhibit of the influences
which created our wonderful southwest. Its crater cone is composed
partly of lava flow, partly of fine loose cinder, and partly of cemented
volcanic ash. It is nearly a perfect cone.
Capulin rises fifteen hundred feet from the plain to an altitude of
eight thousand feet. Its crater is fifteen hundred feet across and
seventy-five feet deep. To complete the volcanic exhibit many blister
cones are found around its base. It is easily reached from two railroads
or by automobile.
XX
THE MUIR WOODS AND OTHER NATIONAL MONUMENTS
National monuments which commemorate history, conserve forests, and
distinguish conspicuous examples of world-making dot other parts of the
United States besides the colorful southwest. Their variety is great and
the natural beauty of some of them unsurpassed.
Their number should be much greater. Every history-helping exploration
of the early days, from Cortreal's inspection of the upper Atlantic
coast in 1501 and Ponce de Leon's exploration of Florida eleven years
later, from Cabrillo's skirting of the Pacific coast in 1542 and
Vancouver's entrance into Puget Sound in 1792, including every early
expedition from north and south into the country now ours and every
exploration of the interior by our own people, should be commemorated,
not by a slab of bronze or marble, but by a striking and appropriate
area set apart as a definite memorial of the history of this nation's
early beginnings.
These areas should be appropriately located upon or overlooking some
important or characteristic landmark of the explorations or events which
they commemorated, and should have scenic importance sufficient to
attract visitors and impress upon them the stages of the progress of
this land from a condition of wilderness to settlement and civilization.
Nor should it end here. The country is richly endowed, from the Atlantic
to the Pacific, with examples of Nature's amazing handicraft in the
making of this continent, the whole range of which should be fully
expressed in national reservations.
Besides these, examples of our northeastern forests, the pines of the
southern Appalachians, the everglades of Florida, the tangled woodlands
of the gulf, and other typical forests which perchance may have escaped
the desolation of civilization, should be added to the splendid forest
reserves of the national parks of the West, first-grown as Nature made
them, forever to remain untouched by the axe.
Thus will the national parks system become the real national museum for
to-day and forever.
There follows a brief catalogue of the slender and altogether fortuitous
beginnings of such an exhibit.
MUIR WOODS NATIONAL MONUMENT
One of the last remaining stands of original redwood forest easily
accessible to the visitor is the Muir Woods in California. It occupies a
picturesque canyon on the slope of Mount Tamalpais, north of the Golden
Gate and opposite San Francisco, from which it is comfortably reached by
ferry and railroad. It was rescued from the axe by William Kent of
California, who, jointly with Mrs. Kent, gave it to the nation as an
exhibit of the splendid forest which once crowded the shores of San
Francisco Bay. It is named after John Muir, to whom this grove was a
favorite retreat for many years.
It exhibits many noble specimens of the California redwood, Sequoia
sempervirens, cousin of the giant sequoia. Some of them attain a height
of three hundred feet, with a diameter exceeding eighteen feet. They
stand usually in clusters, or family groups, their stems erect as
pillars, their crowns joined in a lofty roof, rustling in the Pacific
winds, musical with the songs of birds. Not even in the giant sequoia
groves of the Sierra have I found any spot more cathedral-like than
this. Its floor is brown and sweet-smelling, its aisles outlined by the
tread of generations of worshippers. Its naves, transepts, alcoves, and
sanctuaries are still and dim, yet filled mysteriously with light.
The Muir Woods is a grove of noble redwoods, but it is much more. Apart
from its main passages, in alcove, gateway, and outlying precinct it is
an exhibit of the rich Californian coast forest. The Douglas fir here
reaches stately proportions. Many of the western oaks display their
manifold picturesqueness. A hundred lesser trees and shrubs add their
grace and variety. The forest is typical and complete. Though small in
scope it is not a remnant but naturally blends into its surroundings.
The shaded north hill slopes carry the great trees to the ridge line;
the southern slope exhibits the struggle for precedence with the
mountain shrubs. At the lower end one bursts out into the grass country
and the open hills. Every feature of the loveliest of all forests is at
hand: the valley floor with its miniature trout-stream overhung with
fragrant azaleas; the brown carpet interwoven with azaleas and violets.
There is the cool decoration of many ferns.
[Illustration: _From a photograph by Tibbitts_
CATHEDRAL ISLE OF THE MUIR WOODS]
The straight-growing redwoods compel a change of habit in the trees
that would struggle toward a view of the sky. Mountain-oaks and madrona
are straight-trunked and clear of lower branches. There is rivalry of
the strong and protection for the weak.
The grove is, in truth, a complete expression in little of Nature's
forest plan. The characteristics of the greater redwood forests which
require weeks or months to compass and careful correlation to bring into
perspective, here are exhibited within the rambling of a day. The Muir
Woods is an entity. Its meadow borders, its dark ravines, its valley
floor, its slopes and hilltops, all show fullest luxuriance and perfect
proportion. The struggle of the greater trees to climb the hills is
exemplified as fully as in the great exhibits of the north, which spread
over many miles of hill slope; here one may see its range in half an
hour.
The coloring, too, is rich. The rusty foliage and bark, the brighter
green of the shrubs, the brown carpet, the opal light, stirs the spirit.
The powerful individuality of many of its trees is the source of
never-ending pleasure. There is a redwood upon the West Fork which has
no living base, but feeds, vampire-like, through another's veins; or,
if you prefer the figure of family dependence so strikingly exemplified
in these woods, has been rescued from destruction by a brother. The base
of this tree has been completely girdled by fire. Impossible to draw
subsistence from below, it stands up from a burned, naked, slender
foundation. But another tree fell against it twenty-five or thirty feet
above the ground, in some far past storm, and lost its top; this tree
pours its sap into the veins of the other to support its noble top. The
twin cripples have become a single healthy tree.
One of the most striking exhibits of the Muir Woods is its tangle of
California laurel. Even in its deepest recesses, the bays, as they are
commonly called, reach great size. They sprawl in all directions, bend
at sharp angles, make great loops to enter the soil and root again;
sometimes they cross each other and join their trunks; in one instance,
at least, a large crownless trunk has bent and entered head first the
stem of still a larger tree.
There are greater stands of virgin redwoods in the northern wilderness
of California which the ruthless lumberman has not yet reached but is
approaching fast; these are inland stands of giants, crowded like
battalions. But there is no other Muir Woods, with its miniature
perfection.
DEVIL'S POSTPILE NATIONAL MONUMENT
Southeast of craggy Lyell, mountain climax and eastern outpost of the
Yosemite National Park, the Muir Trail follows the extravagantly
beautiful beginnings of the Middle Fork of the San Joaquin River through
a region of myriad waters and snow-flecked mountains. Banner Peak,
Ritter Mountain, Thousand Island Lake, Volcanic Ridge, Shadow
Lake--national park scenery in its noblest expression, but not yet
national park.
A score of miles from Lyell, the trail follows the river into a volcanic
bottom from whose forest rises the splendid group of pentagonal basaltic
columns which was made a national monument in 1911 under the title of
the Devil's Postpile. Those who know the famous Giant's Causeway of the
Irish coast will know it in kind, but not in beauty.
The enormous uplift which created the Sierra was accompanied on both its
slopes by extensive volcanic eruptions, the remains of which are
frequently visible to the traveller. The huge basaltic crystals of the
Devil's Postpile were a product of this volcanic outpouring; they formed
deep within the hot masses which poured over the region for miles
around. Their upper ends have become exposed by the erosion of the ages
by which the cinder soil and softer rock around them have been worn
away.
The trail traveller comes suddenly upon this splendid group. It is
elevated, as if it were the front of a small ridge, its posts standing
on end, side by side, in close formation. Below it, covering the front
of the ridge down to the line of the trail, is an enormous talus mass of
broken pieces. The appropriateness of the name strikes one at the first
glance. This is really a postpile, every post carefully hewn to pattern,
all of nearly equal length. The talus heap below suggests that his
Satanic Majesty was utilizing it also as a woodpile, and had sawn many
of the posts into lengths to fit the furnaces which we have been taught
that he keeps hot for the wicked.
Certainly it is a beautiful, interesting, and even an imposing
spectacle. One also thinks of it as a gigantic organ, whose many hundred
pipes rise many feet in air. Its lofty position, seen from the viewpoint
of the trail, is one of dignity; it overlooks the pines and firs
surrounding the clearing in which the observer stands. The trees on the
higher level scarcely overtop it; in part, it is outlined against the
sky.
"The Devil's Postpile," writes Professor Joseph N. LeConte, Muir's
successor as the prophet of the Sierra, "is a wonderful cliff of
columnar basalt, facing the river. The columns are quite perfect prisms,
nearly vertical and fitted together like the cells of a honeycomb. Most
of the prisms are pentagonal, though some are of four or six sides. The
standing columns are about two feet in diameter and forty feet high. At
the base of the cliff is an enormous basalt structure, but, wherever the
bed-rock is exposed beneath the pumice covering, the same formation can
be seen."
An error in the proclamation papers made the official title of this
monument the Devil Postpile, and thus it must legally appear in all
official documents.
The reservation also includes the Rainbow Fall of the San Juan River,
one of the most beautiful waterfalls of the sub-Sierra region, besides
soda springs and hot springs. This entire reservation was originally
included in the Yosemite National Park, but was cut out by an
unappreciative committee appointed to revise boundaries. It is to be
hoped that Congress will soon restore it to its rightful status.
DEVIL'S TOWER NATIONAL MONUMENT
A structure similar in nature to the Devil's Postpile, but vastly
greater in size and sensational quality, forms one of the most striking
natural spectacles east of the Rocky Mountains. The Devil's Tower is
unique. It rises with extreme abruptness from the rough Wyoming levels
just west of the Black Hills. It is on the banks of the Belle Fourche
River, which later, encircling the Black Hills around the north, finds
its way into the Big Cheyenne and the Missouri.
This extraordinary tower emerges from a rounded forested hill of
sedimentary rock which rises six hundred feet above the plain; from the
top of that the tower rises six hundred feet still higher. It is visible
for a hundred miles or more in every direction. Before the coming of the
white man it was the landmark of the Indians. Later it served a useful
purpose in guiding the early explorers.
To-day it is the point which draws the eye for many miles. The visitor
approaching by automobile sees it hours away, and its growth upon the
horizon as he approaches is not his least memorable experience. It has
the effect at a distance of an enormous up-pointing finger which has
been amputated just below the middle joint. When near enough to enable
one to distinguish the upright flutings formed by its closely joined
pentagonal basaltic prisms, the illusion vanishes. These, bending inward
from a flaring base, straighten and become nearly perpendicular as they
rise. Now, one may fancy it the stump of a tree more than a hundred feet
in diameter whose top imagination sees piercing the low clouds. But
close by, all similes become futile; then the Devil's Tower can be
likened to nothing but itself.
This column is the core of a volcanic formation which doubtless once had
a considerably larger circumference. At its base lies an immense talus
of broken columns which the loosening frosts and the winter gales are
constantly increasing; the process has been going on for untold
thousands of years, during which the softer rock of the surrounding
plains has been eroded to its present level.
One may climb the hill and the talus. The column itself cannot be
climbed except by means of special apparatus. Its top is nearly flat and
elliptical, with a diameter varying from sixty to a hundred feet.
PINNACLES NATIONAL MONUMENT
[Illustration: _From a photograph by Tibbitts_
PINNACLES NATIONAL MONUMENT]
[Illustration: _From a photograph by N.H. Darion_
THE DEVIL'S TOWER]
Forty miles as the crow flies east of Monterey, California, in a spur
of the low Coast Range, is a region which erosion has carved into many
fantastic shapes. Because of its crowded pointed rocks, it has been set
apart under the title of the Pinnacles National Monument. For more than
a century and a quarter it was known as Vancouver's Pinnacles because
the great explorer visited it while his ships lay at anchor in Monterey
Bay, and afterward described it in his "Voyages and Discoveries." It is
unfortunate that the historical allusion was lost when it became a
national reservation.
Two deep gorges, bordered by fantastic walls six hundred to a thousand
feet high, and a broad semi-circular, flower-grown amphitheatre,
constitute the central feature. Deep and narrow tributary gorges furnish
many of the curious and intricate forms which for many years have made
the spot popular among sightseers. Rock masses have fallen upon the side
walls of several of these lesser gorges, converting them into
picturesque winding tunnels and changing deep alcoves into caves which
require candles to see.
It is a region of very unusual interest and charm.
SHOSHONE CAVERN NATIONAL MONUMENT
On the way to the Yellowstone National Park by way of the Wyoming
entrance at Cody, and three miles east of the great Shoshone Dam, a
limestone cave has been set apart under the title of the Shoshone Cavern
National Monument. The way in is rough and precipitous and, after
entering the cave, a descent by rope is necessary to reach the chambers
of unusual beauty. One may then journey for more than a mile through
galleries some of which are heavily incrusted with crystals.
LEWIS AND CLARK CAVERN NATIONAL MONUMENT
Approaching the crest of the Rockies on the Northern Pacific Railroad,
the Lewis and Clark Cavern is passed fifty miles before reaching Butte.
Its entrance is perched thirteen hundred feet above the broad valley of
the Jefferson River, which the celebrated explorers followed on their
westward journey; it overlooks fifty miles of their course.
The cavern, which has the usual characteristics of a limestone cave,
slopes sharply back from its main entrance, following the dip of the
strata. Some of its vaults are decorated in great splendor. The
depredations of vandals were so damaging that in 1916 its entrance was
closed by an iron gate.
This cavern is the only memorial of the Lewis and Clark expedition in
the national parks system; there is no record that the explorers entered
it or knew of its existence.
Two hundred and thirty miles east of the Cavern, Clark inscribed his
name and the date, July 25, 1806, upon the face of a prominent butte
known as Pompey's Pillar. This would have been a far more appropriate
monument to the most important of American explorations than the
limestone cave. In fact, the Department of the Interior once attempted
to have it proclaimed a national monument; the fact that it lay within
an Indian allotment prevented. The entire course of this great
expedition should be marked at significant points by appropriate
national monuments.
WIND CAVE NATIONAL PARK
In the southwestern corner of South Dakota, on the outskirts of the
Black Hills, is one of the most interesting limestone caverns of the
country. It was named Wind Cave because, with the changes of temperature
during the day, strong currents of wind blow alternately into and out of
its mouth. It has many long passages and fine chambers gorgeously
decorated. It is a popular resort.
The United States Biological Survey maintains a game-preserve.
JEWEL CAVE NATIONAL MONUMENT
Northwest of Wind Cave, thirteen miles west and south of Custer, South
Dakota boasts another limestone cavern of peculiar beauty, through whose
entrance also the wind plays pranks. It is called Jewel Cave because
many of its crystals are tinted in various colors, often very
brilliantly. Under torchlight the effect is remarkable.
Connecting chambers have been explored for more than three miles, and
there is much of it yet unknown.
OREGON CAVES NATIONAL MONUMENT
In the far southwestern corner of Oregon, about thirty miles south of
Grant's Pass, upon slopes of coast mountains and at an altitude of four
thousand feet, is a group of large limestone caves which have been set
apart by presidential proclamation under the title of the Oregon Caves
National Monument. Locally they are better known as the Marble Halls of
Oregon.
There are two entrances at different levels, the passages and chambers
following the dip of the strata. A considerable stream, the outlet of
the waters which dissolved these caves in the solid limestone, passes
through. The wall decorations, and, in some of the chambers, the
stalagmites and stalactites, are exceedingly fine. The vaults and
passages are unusually large. There is one chamber twenty-five feet
across whose ceiling is believed to be two hundred feet high.
MOUNT OLYMPUS NATIONAL MONUMENT
For sixty miles or more east and west across the Olympian Peninsula,
which is the forested northwestern corner of Washington and the United
States between Puget Sound and the Pacific Ocean, stretch the Olympian
Mountains. The country is a rugged wilderness of tumbled ranges, grown
with magnificent forests above which rise snowy and glaciered summits.
Its climax is Mount Olympus, eight thousand one hundred feet in
altitude, rising about twenty-five miles equidistant from the Strait of
Juan de Fuca upon the north and the Pacific Ocean upon the west.
The entire peninsula is extremely wild. It is skirted by a road along
its eastern and part of its northern edges, connecting the water-front
towns. Access to the mountain is by arduous trail. The reservation
contains nine hundred and fifty square miles. Although possessing
unusual scenic beauty, it was reserved for the purpose of protecting the
Olympic elk, a species peculiar to the region. Deer and other wild
animals also are abundant.
WHEELER NATIONAL MONUMENT
High under the Continental Divide in southwestern Colorado near Creede,
a valley of high altitude, grotesquely eroded in tufa, rhyolite, and
other volcanic rock, is named the Wheeler National Monument in honor of
Captain George Montague Wheeler, who conducted geographical explorations
between 1869 and 1879. Its deep canyons are bordered by lofty pinnacles
of rock. It is believed that General John C. Fremont here met the
disaster which drove back his exploring-party of 1848, fragments of
harness and camp equipment and skeletons of mules having been found.
VERENDRYE NATIONAL MONUMENT
The first exploration of the northern United States east of the Rocky
Mountains is commemorated by the Verendrye National Monument at the Old
Crossing of the Missouri River in North Dakota. Here rises Crowhigh
Butte, on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, an eminence commanding a
wide view in every direction.
Verendrye, the celebrated French explorer, started from the north shore
of Lake Superior about 1740 and passed westward and southward into the
regions of the great plains. He or his sons, for the records of their
journeys are confusing, passed westward into Montana along a course
which Lewis and Clark paralleled in 1806, swung southward in the
neighborhood of Fort Benton, and skirted the Rockies nearly to the
middle of Wyoming, passing within a couple of hundred miles of the
Yellowstone National Park.
Crowhigh Butte is supposed to have given the Verendryes their first
extensive view of the upper Missouri. The butte was long a landmark to
guide early settlers to Old Crossing.
SULLY'S HILL NATIONAL PARK
Congress created the Sully's Hill National Park in North Dakota in 1904
in response to a local demand. Its hills and meadows constitute a museum
of practically the entire flora of the State. The United States
Biological Survey maintains there a wild-animal preserve for elk, bison,
antelope, and other animals representative of the northern plains.
SITKA NATIONAL MONUMENT
On Baranoff Island, upon the southeastern shore of Alaska, is a
reservation known as the Sitka National Monument which commemorates an
important episode in the early history of Alaska. On this tract, which
lies within a mile of the steamboat-landing at Sitka, formerly stood the
village of the Kik-Siti Indians who, in 1802, attacked the settlement of
Sitka and massacred the Russians who had established it. Two years
later the Russians under Baranoff recovered the settlement from the
Indians, contrary to the active opposition of Great Britain, and
established the title which they afterward transferred to the United
States. Graves of some of those who fell in the later battle may be
seen.
The reservation is also a fine exhibit of the forest and flora of the
Alexander Archipelago. Sixteen totem-poles remain from the old native
days.
OLD KASAAN NATIONAL MONUMENT
Remains of the rapidly passing native life of the Alexander Archipelago
on the southeast coast of Alaska are conserved in the Old Kasaan
National Monument on the east shore of Prince of Wales Island. The
village of Old Kasaan, occupied for many years by the Hydah tribe and
abandoned a decade or more ago, contains several community houses of
split timber, each of which consists of a single room with a common
fireplace in the middle under a smoke-hole in the centre of the roof.
Cedar sleeping-booths, each the size of an ordinary piano-box, are built
around the wall.
The monument also possesses fifty totem-poles, carved and richly
colored.
* * * * *