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Show V." j T c -w ijvu5 rMniri : 'jr-zf --5 -1 r -V . - . ! f : - u ' - J r- r !- . " - , s, f v "H s $ ' i ' By JOHN DICKINSON SHERMAN V " T ' - VH V UB national monuments a hundred N. " v , - I ' !..L J( Ki.J ; v I jears from now will be numbered v tflX ffi Wrf among the priceless possessions of TttZZlZZD jFt&JzfARlZalS - - V ' the American Deonle. At Dresent r I By JOHN DICKINSON SHERMAN eUR national monuments a hundred years from now will be numbered among the priceless possessions of i the American people. At present 1JJff "Si tlley are Pretty much neglected, both IK by the federal government and by innflfir'J' tlle PeP'e- There are 30 or more in J H, charge of the Interior department jjjjljyyy U an(j congress gives the national park 4 service but $12,500 to care for all of them. Visitors to the 18 where records were kept numbered but 212.S2G last season. But that is because be-cause the people know almost nothing about the national monuments. Some day these national monuments will be made easily accessible and fixed up; then the people will flock to them. For all of them are well worth seeing and. many ? them nre among the wonders of the world. With national parks and national forests and national monuments, etc., etc., the public is naturally nat-urally mixed up on what's what. Here's the right of that: There nre 10 national parks, each established by a separate act of congress and all in charge of the national park service of the Interior department. I'l-imarily they contain scenic features of national Importance, though two Hot Springs in Arkansas and Piatt in Oklahoma are medicinal. They are kept as far as possible in their original wild state and are wild life sanctuaries. They are protected against commercialism. Familiar names in the national na-tional park system are Yellowstone, Yosemite, Pocky Mountain and Grand Canyon. Lafayette, on the coast of Maine, is the only scenic national park east of the Mississippi. Congress will not purchnse land for national park purposes and the only public lands are in the West. Lafayette was presented to the nation by public-spirited citizens. There are six national military parks Gettysburg Gettys-burg and Yicksburg are faiqiliar examples under control of the War department. There are approximately 153 national forests, under control of the forest service of the Department Depart-ment of 4.grior.lture. They were established for scientific lumbering and for grazing and were originally purely commercial propositions. The Agricultural department, however, in lis persistent efforts to get control of the national parks, has set up recreational features In many national forests In competition with the national parks. Now we come to the national monuments. "National "Na-tional Landmarks" would be a more fining designation. desig-nation. Previous to 1000 the United Stales had no provision for the establishment of national monuments. Public insistence became so great for the protection of natural wonders from vandal-Ism vandal-Ism that In 1906 the "Act for the Preservation of American Antiquities" was passed by congress. This act provides for the punishment of vandal-Ism vandal-Ism and for permits to excavate and collect. Section Sec-tion 2 of the act reads: That the President of the United States is hereby authorized. In his discretion, to declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric pre-historic structures and other objects of historic or scienttiic interest that are situated upon the lands owned or controlled by the srovernmint of the I'nlted States to be national monuments, and may reserve as a part thereof parcels of land, the limits of which in all cases shall be conllned to the smallest small-est area compatible with the proper care and management man-agement of the objects to be protected. Under this act about 50 national monuments are row established. About 30 are in charge of the national park service and about 15 under control of the forest service. The War department controls con-trols three. Kxact figures cannot be given as changes are constantly occurring. Of those controlled by the forest service the largest is Mount Olympus In Washington, which Is u region ul loountalns, forests and glaciers nnd the home of the Olympic elk. Pandelier In New Mexico Mex-ico contains vast numbers of prehistoric cliff-dweller cliff-dweller ruins and Is presumably slated for national na-tional park honors. Bryre Canyon in Utah of which more later is an eroded canyon of 7,440 acres. The 1023 report of Director Stephen T. Mather of the national park service to the secretary of the Interior gives In addition to Devil's Tower, El Morro. nnd Petrified Forest of which more later the follow ing as the list of the national monuments under his charge. They have been grouped by this writer. The list: Montezuma Castle, Arizona. 1906, prehistoric cliff dwelling, 160 acres. Chaco Canyon. New Mexico. 1907, numerous pueblos pueb-los and cliff dwellings, 20,029 acres. Navajo, Arizona, 1909, prehistoric pueblos and cliff dwellings, 360 acres. Hovenweep, Utah-Colorado, 1928. prehistoric towers, tow-ers, pueblos and cliff dwellings, 286 acres. Tumacacorl, Arizona, 1908, ruin of Seventeenth century Franciscan mission, 10 acres. Gran Qulvira, New Mexico. 1909, ancient pueblo and early Spanish mission, 160 acres. Casa Grande, Arizona, prehistoric relic, 4S0 acres. Yucca House, Colorado, 1919, prehistoric relic, 10 acres. Aztec Ruin. New Mexico, 1923, prehistoric pueblo of 500 rooms, 6 acres. Pipe Spring, Arizona. 1923. old stone fort and spring of pioneer days, 40 acres. Mulr Woods, California, 1908, fine redwood grove, 426 acres. Pinnacles. California. 1308, many spire-like rock formations, 600 to 1.000 feet high, 2.653 acres. Natural Bridges, Utah, 1908, three very large natural bridges, 2,740 acres. Rainbow Bridge. Utah, 1910, height 309 feet, span 278 feet, 160 acres. Sitka, Alaska, 1910, park of historic association. 16 fine totem poles, 57 a,cres. Colorado, Colorado. 1911, wonderful example of erosion, many lofty monoliths. 13,883 acres. Papago Saguaro. Arizona. 1914. characteristic desert des-ert flora and many pictographs, 1.940 acres. Lewis and Clark Cavern, Montana, 1908, immense limestone cave, 1G0 acres. Shoshone Cavern, Wyoming, 1909, large limestone cave, 210 acres. Dinosaur, Utah. 1915, deposits of fossil remains, 80 acres. Fossil Cyad. South Dakota, 1922. deposits of plant fossils. 320 acres. Capulin Mountain. New Mexico. 1916, cinder cone of geologically recent formation. 6S1 acres. Katmai, Alaska, 191S, volcanic phenomena. Including Includ-ing "Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes." 1,940 acres. Verendrye, North Dakota, 1917. Includes Crow-high Crow-high Butte, from which the famous French explorer ex-plorer first saw trans-Missouri territory, 253 acres. Scott's Bluff. Nebraska. 1919. point of historic interest In winning of the West. 2.053 acres. Tages of Interesting matter could be written about these national monuments. Take, for example, ex-ample, those of Arizona, New -Mexico and Colorado. They Illustrate the history of tiie American Southwest South-west from the prehistoric times of the ciilT dweli-ers dweli-ers down through the many years of frantic searching for gold by the Spanisli soldiers and the colonizing and proselyting by the Spanish priests. Cortex, conquered Mexico for Spain in 1510-21. It was soon looted. The Spaniard then turned his search for gold toward Peru which is another story and toward the unexplored wilderness wilder-ness to the North. The air was full of northern treasure myths El Dorado, the gilded man. and n whole people clothed In gold; the Seven Cities of Cibola, with their golden domes; Quivlra, I he city of gold. Side by side soldier and priest invaded the di sert. Each despised the oilier; each used the other. Coronado's expedition from .Mexico in 1540 that penetrated as far as Kan. is one of the most romantic in nil history. Gran Quivira was once the nourishing pueblo city of Tahira, believed to be Quivlra by the Span-lards. Span-lards. It was discovered In 15S1 hy Francisco Banchez de Chamuseado. Francisco de Acetlevo founded the mission in 1028. The Apachts wipe.l it out about 1GT0. The ancient pueblo held about 1.500. The great stone church was built In 1011. Both still stand in this ghost city of the lonu n;o. Montezuma Castle is one of the relics of the prehistoric people called cliff dwellers and is very old. It Is a communal house of 25 rooms, built in a shallow cave in the face of a lofty cliff. Casa Grande (Great House) Is a prehistoric mystery. mys-tery. It was already a ruin when Fray Marcos discovered it In 1530. It is a large building of a natural concrete called ruleche, smoothly plastered within. If stands in n large compound of outlying buildings enclosed in a rectangular wall. Aztec Puin was presented to the nation by Archer M. Huntington of the American Museum of Natural History. It is being extensively excavated and restored. Centuries before Columbus one of the richest centers of prehistoric civilization was the valley of the Amimas river In northv. cs'.;-n New Mexico. There, within the radius of a single mile vast mounds of earth and fallen stone mark tho site of nearly 100 community dwellings. In lis original condition condi-tion the Aztec' Ruin Itself was a stately sandstone structure, 350 by 2S0 feet, three stories high and built around a rectangular court. The 70.000 specimens already re-covered re-covered constitute probably the most co m p 1 e t e collection representative of a prehistoric North American culture. Mount Katmai, a big Alaskan volcano, blew off its head In 1012, covered a vast peninsula penin-sula with slag and darkened the skies all over the world with dust. The explosion also created the "Valley "Val-ley of Ten Thousand Smokes," one of the wonders of the world. It is live volcanic ground, cracked by fissures fis-sures and pitted by millions of fumaroles of every hue which bubble and belch and send up steam and smoke. And so It goes. Each na t i o n a 1 monument has its own story. An.d new national monuments monu-ments are being created. cre-ated. One of the newest new-est is Carlsbad Cave In New Mexico. It has been only partly explored but is stated by experts far to surpass sur-pass Mammoth Cave In size and In magnificence mag-nificence and variety of decoration. The latest addition to the list of monuments is the Craters of the . Moon, In Idaho, where 40 square miles have been set aside by President Pres-ident Coolidge. It la a lava wonderland, with cones, tunnels, caves and all sorts of twisted and contorted forms of hardened volcanic vol-canic flow. Of the national monuments chosen for illustration illustra-tion Bryce Canyon has Just been given national park honors. A bill for Its creation as the Utah National park was passed in the closing hours of the last session of congress. Its feature Is a box canyon three miles long and two miles wide, cut 1,000 feet into the Paunsaugunt plateau of southeastern south-eastern Utah. There Is a wonderful variety of eroslonal form, which are painted In every color, shade and tint of the spectrum reds, pinks, creams, tans, lavenders, purples, blues, greens, chocolates and whites. It takes high rank among natural wonders. The act provides that before Bryce Canyon becomes Utah National park, all lands In the area must be conveyed to the United States. Utah and the Union Pacific own 640 acres. The Petrified Forest contains the most wonderful wonder-ful collection of petrified trees in the world. These trees lie in three groups, which really are not forests" for-ests" at all, for most of the trunks were washed to their present positions on an eroded plain by prehistoric floods from forests far away. Many of the trunks exceed 100 feet In length. One log, lil feet long, bridges a canyon 45 feet wide. The state of mineralization of the wood almost places It among the precious stones. Not only are chalcedony, chal-cedony, opais and agates on view but even jasper and onyx. The Devil's Tower Is an extraordinary mass of igneous rock and is one of the most conspicuous features of the Black Hills region of Wyoming. I; lias been a landmark from prehistoric times. First there is the level plain, then a rounded wooded hill UC0 feet high and on top of that the tower, 000 feet high and a mile-in circumference. Its sides are fluted by great columns which stand perpen dicular, except where they flare out at the base and in at the top. These columns, about 6 feet In diameter, are mostly pentagonal, but some art four-sided and some six-sided. El Morro National monument is a landmark ti thrill a good American. Two enormous connecter rocks of vari-colored eroded sandstone rise abrupt ly from the arid plain. One suggests a castle am is called El Morro. The other is called Inscriptlot I!ock because it bears priceless historical records For nearly four centuries ago those walls echoei the chink of the steel harness of Conqnlstadore:-and Conqnlstadore:-and tile prayers of Franciscan Martyrs. Then w:is a spring there and a shallow cave ami soldier ami priest turned aside to them from the old Zun trail. And there they cut their names and the wh and wherefore of their comings and goings. An inscription perhaps as Important as any -tbis, cut by Don Juan de Onate 14 years befon. i he Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rook: Piiso por aqul de adelantado don juan de onat-del onat-del desrubrimicnto de la mar del sur a 16 el Apri del 1606. Passed by here the provincial chief Don Juan d-Onate d-Onate from the discovery of the South Sea on tin 16th of April 1606. This approximately fixes the date of the mund Ing of Santa Fe, as it is known Onate fixed lib capital there upon his return from the Gulf ol California. Scarcely less interesting Is the Inscription, here wiiit reproduced, hy Don Diego de Vargas yfal:. Luian Ponce de I.e-'n: Aqul rstaba el G-nl Dn Do de Vargas quien con quislo a nrstra santa fe y la rtal enrona todo e) nueva Mexico a su cosla ano de 16P2. Here was the General Don Dif go de Varr-ns, who conquered to our holy faith and the roynl crown alj New M xiro. at his own expense, year of ic,;i2. The Indians had risen against the Spaniards in Santa Fe in li"0. massacred them and driven thra out, and destroyed as far as possible ail traces of civilization and Christianity. For twelve years they enjoyed their ancient Independence. It w;ic Diego de Vargas who reconjuered the region u 1Y.C. There are more than 50 of thos inscriptions. Tlay contain names great in those times Nieto, who escorted the first missionaries to Zunl in 1H20; Lu.ian. v. ho aventred the murder of Fray Francisco l.eirado in 1G."2; Ar'huleta. Uriharri and so ou down into the flrM rnlf of the Eighteenth century V. here in all the world is there a more fasclnat ing lUtorh al relic than Inscription Kock7 |