Evening star., 1915-09-12
WHAT THE GOVERNMENT IS DOING
uncle Sans newest pleasure ground
the Rocky Mountain National Park

Uncle Sans newest pleasure ground
the Rocky Mountain National Park
has just been for
Rocky Mountain mally welcome
National Park. ,n,o great the traets aam'' set ct
lapart by the federal government ex-
lclusively for recreational purposes.
The park, which in its several hun
dred thousand acres includes one of
the most picturesque stretches of the
continental divide, lies just west OF
Denver and in easy reach of that city.
1t is the thirteenth national play
ground to be set apart since the crea-
ton of Yellowstone National Park in
1917 furnished precedent for the gov
ernment's control for the pleasure of
. ei.izehs OF some of the country's s
most beautiful and interesting areas.
Al At the e formal dedication of the park
rev Gays ago Assistant Secretary of
| the interior Stephen T. Mather. in
cnarge or national parks, represented
the federal government, and there
we're present. besides Gov. Carlson of
Colorado. Representative Edward T.
Taylor of Colorado. who successfully
guided the park legislation through
Congress, hundreds of motorists from
DenVer and scores of persons from
other portions of the state. The cere-
1 n.
Mills, known as the father of Rocky
Mountain National Park" who first
proposed the reservation and who has
worked increasingly for a dozen years
government. For years he has made
his home on the slopes of Longs Peak,
one of the highest of the Rockies,
which is now included in the reserved
area.
| Plans for the development of the
new park along lines adopted for the
other federal pleasure grounds are al
ready under consideration by the In
terror Department. These will involve
the building of roads, trails and bridges,
the marking of camping sites and the
granting of concessions to hotels, stage
lines and other agencies whose serV-
ices are needed by visitors and pleas
ure seekers. The state of Colorado was
so pleased by the creation of the park
that it volunteered to cooperate in
its development and has already be-
gun work on the road system that will
J make accessible the valleys and peaks
land other beauty spots of the big
| scenic tract
| Assistant Secretary Mather is deeply
interested in spreading a knowledge of
the newest addition to the national
publicity campaign for a national
park scenic tour with railway Off
| cials. automobile associations, resident
| superintendents Of parks, chambers of
| commerce ana Olner ORGANIZATIONS. lii
mediately after the dedication of
1 Rocky Mountain Park he organized a
pathfinding party of Denver automo-
! bilists. who drove over the 584 miles
between that city and Yellowstone
Park to study the possibilities for a
..park-to-park'' automobile highway
/ linking the oldest and the newest fed
eral parks. Mr.. Mather preceded the
| pathfinders to Yellowstone Park, and
| took them through that reservation,
nut fr flon RI
velopments that it may be found ad-
visable to follow in opening up the
new park. Careful notes of road con-
dltions were made by the pathf1nders
and these will be given wide publicity
| by the Interior Department for the
beneft of touring parties who desire
to make the trip. The notes also will
be made the basis for more careful
surveys. with a view to the construc-
ton of permanent highway.
Because of the great need for accu-
rate rainfall and water supply sta
tistics by investi-
Preparing Charts gators and invest
| ors making study
OF Rainfall. of the undeveloped
resources of the country, the weather
| bureau is preparing it's first charts
| showing precipitation for a consider
! able period over all parts of the United
| States. The charts, which will be for
the twenty-year period from 1895 to
1914. inclusive, will be published in a
| comprehensive atlas of agricultural
/ meteorology now in course of prepara-
| tion. 80
| The difficulty in the preparation of
! such charts lies in the fact that though
| rainfall measurements are now being
| made regularly at more than $500 sta
| tions scattered over the country. many
those in the west, have been in exist
| ence a very short time. Only a few
communities along the Atlantic sea-
| board have rainfall records for 100
years. BY adopting twenty-year
period. however. the bureau found that
| a considerable number of stations had
| complete records.
| In addition, there were numerous sta
| tions with ive-year' records. and this
data was sufficient, it was found, for
| reduction by statistical methods to the
| twenty-year basis. In making this cal
culation the ratio was found between
| the rainfall for short and long term
| stations for identical years, and the
mean of all such available ratios was
| then applied to the appropriate short
| term records. BY this method the
weather experts have succeeded in
eliminating to great extent the inc
|
| rainfall for a single year or month,
which automatically disappear in the
| long records. The result Will be the
| first chart it has been possible to pre-
pare that will furnish a basis for ac-
| curate comparisons of the rainfall.
year in and year out. in all parts OF
| the country.
| If the thousands of tons of the vari-
Gus substances known as city waste
! that accumulate in
Utilizing every community comm were re
City Waste. city residents would
not only soon find their thoroughfares
impa ssable. but would probably be
| subjected to plaques such as those that
more than decimated populations in the
middle ages. Just how much city waste
| accumulates each year, what 1t Is ana
| how the problems of its disposal are
met are some of the things brought out
! in a recent study conducted Tor the
| government by scientists OF the bureau
! of soils of the Department OF ASri-
| culture.
The chief problems in connection with
| city waste are how to dispose Of t
| hygienically and economically, or, bet
| ter still, profitably. The Agricultural
| Department considered it worth while
/ to look into the matter because OF
| special phase of the economic situation.
| Of q w