Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1881-08-25
The National Park.

A correspondent of the A rgonaut
writing from the Yosemite says: Sit
ting under the shadow of oaks and
pines, at the foot of the great Yosemite
fall, within the voice of its tumbling
waters, surrounded by ferns, and milk
weed, and trembling poplars, and with
in the great amphitheatre of rocks.
with decayed stump for my whiting
table, write. A week spent in this
valley, beside the clear waters of the
MERGED, four thousand feet above the
level of the sea, and three thousand be-
low the level of the land, with domes.
peaks, and pinnacles, and precipitous
walls of granite, with oaks, and pines,
and shivering poplar trees, and ferns.
and grasses, and wild flowers. and roar
ing waterfalls, and grassy meadows.
ought to do one good; ought to lift
him above and out of the anxieties and
petty vexations of an everyday city
life, with its little ambitions and strue-
giles. 1t is certainly an agreeable thing
to be away from the men of merchan.
disc, and the men of politics, and the
men of newspapers. / have done this.
leaving my annoyances at home, EXCEPT
my wife, who sits upon the fallen log
of which 1 occupy the stump, sketch
ing; endeavOring tOportray this divine
waterfall, that leaps from its dizzy
height two thousand six hundred feet
down to the chasm below; to picture
these eternal rocks, this ever-fallinp
stream in its splendid framework of
sky, and rock, and forest; to reduce it
to a canvas-to canvas thirty inches
square-as am endeavoring, in feeble
words, with Faber pencil, to describe
a phenomenon that nature Wrenched
itself to produce; phenomenon that
no one can explain; that Whitney, and
Clarence King, and John Muir love to
theorize about, and wonder whether it
was produced by glacial action or sub
sidance; whether in some far-off epoch
of time cataclysm rent the rock asun-
der, or whether the bottom dropped
out one early day in time. L have no
theory concerning the Yosemite. /
saw it sixteen years ago. Since then
it has not changed in its natural fea-
lures, save wagon roads instead of
trails; twelve-seated coaches in place
of mule and horse; some more hotels,
and, l am sorry to say hotel runners.
Trails have been made to new points
of view, and the Yosemite Park Com
missOners have established some
healthy regulations. They would be
more healthy, no doubt, if commission
ers and guardians were chosen from
those who have no interest in the Big
OakFlat wagon-rOad, and who have
no mOney-making interest in horse or
hotel. 1t was a grand idea to rescue
this valley from private ownership,
and preserve it for a national park.
1t would still be an improvement if
the commissioners would purchase the
private trails, abolish tolls, and throw
open the valley and its surroundings
to the free access of all. 1t would be
still further improved if the area of
the reservation could be more largely
extended, and the itinerant shepherd
er, with his devastating woody caravan,
could be excluded from coming within
it. Sheep are utterly destructive to all
the lesser plants so curious to the bot
anist, while the sheep-herder is a per-
feet fire-fend; he burns on every side,
that in the coming years he may find
more grass. This reservation should
become a grand game preserve and boz
tanical garden, where the plants and
wild animals of the Sierra might find
protection from the greed and avarice
of man.