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Show Park Service Report Present Day Park System a Result Of Centuries of Resource Concern The national park idea is a unique contribution of the United States to world culture. cul-ture. The idea evolved from a long history of concern for conservation and preservation preserva-tion of natural resources, scenic sce-nic beauty and scientific wonders of this new nation-concern nation-concern by William Penn as far back as 1682; by American Ameri-can artist George Catlin, in 1832, and by Henry Thoreau, in 1858. In 1872 the nation's first national park-Yellowstone-was established, commiting as federal responsibility the new public land policy enun- From the Canyons . . . f f dlr 'f!FX National Park Service .1 0Ajf4'J:.: Department of the Interior 1 N' Canyonlands Arches Bridges dated in the Yosemite Valley, Val-ley, Calif., legislation of 1864 that some public domain do-main lands be held in public ownership for other than material ma-terial gain or riches. The Yellowstone legislation legisla-tion established criteria for selection of national park lands. Lt. Doane, U. S. Ar- my escort for the Yellowstone Yellow-stone expedition, summarized summariz-ed those attributes when he wrote of Yellowstone: "As a country for sightseers, is is without parallel; as a field for scientific research, it promises great results; in branches of geology, mineralogy, miner-alogy, botany, zoology and ornithology, it is probably the greatest laboratory that nature furnishes on the surface sur-face of the globe." Lt. Doane thus cited four requisites of a national park today: scenic scen-ic value, uniqueness, natural natur-al values and other scientific scientif-ic values. He perceived a repository of aesthetic, recreational, rec-reational, and scientific significance. sig-nificance. In 1936 the Antiquities Act provided for establishment of national monuments, us-ng us-ng the term "monument" not as a statuary object as was common in this country, but as a "monument of nature" na-ture" as used in Europe. A monument may range from small acreage (483 acres m Oregon Caves National Monument) Mon-ument) to vastness, the 2.7 million acres of Katmai, Alaska. Al-aska. A Presidential proclamation procla-mation may establish a monument; mon-ument; Congress must authorize auth-orize a national park. National Monuments may be among the most unique and majestic of nature's marvels, but generally they lack the spaciousness and diversity for national park status. A few national monuments, mon-uments, however, have been endowed with such vastness and range of natural attributes attri-butes they were later authorized auth-orized as national parks. Grand Canyon, for example, was set aside as a monument monu-ment by Presidential Proclamation Pro-clamation in 198, and given nation?.! n?rk status in 1919. Arches Natonal Monument may rate similar action. Originally Or-iginally set aside by Proclamation Pro-clamation in 1929, it has now been proposed as a national park. National Parks and monuments mon-uments represent the finest of our country's lands and waters; natural features with such scenic, scientific, educational edu-cational and inspirational importance im-portance they merit commitment com-mitment to national care. They are established to preserve pre-serve for all lime scenic beauty, wilderness, native wildlife, indigenous plant-life, plant-life, and areas of scientific significance or antiquity. They are part of our country's coun-try's cherished heritage a living legacy linking generation genera-tion to generation, century to century, and a viable resource re-source of strength, inspiration, inspira-tion, re-creation and scientific scien-tific discoverv for endless generations of Americans. |