Looking across Diamond Lake toward Mount Bailey, elevation 8,356 feet.

comfortable and generally more satisfactory, because of the greater amount of time that the visitor has to spend in seeing the most remarkable features of the park, but they experience a longing for the stillness of the forests and peculiar fascination of the park in the stagecoach days. It was inevitable that the automobile should revolutionize the park tour, just as it changed travel conditions everywhere and turned into memories cherished methods of seeing and doing things. However, the old atmosphere of the Yellowstone is still to be enjoyed, not perhaps on the roads, but certainly only a few hundred yards distant, where the trails take their winding course through the forests. Wild animals are abundant along the trails, and the wild flowers grow in greatest profusion. No wildness has been lost from these trails; no charm of the old West has vanished. The trails should be used, and I am happy to state that a considerable number of parties came through the park with pack trains this season. More are coming next season. Some of these trail parties, among them one headed by former Secretary of the Interior Walter L. Fisher, saw nearly every species of wild animal that inhabits the park, including the wild bison of the upper reaches of the Lamar River and the moose of the Upper Yellowstone.

MORE TRAILS NEEDED.

There are more than 300 miles of tourist trails in the park, and over 200 miles of fire lanes and patrol routes. Some of these trails need repair, and the system should be extended, especially in the Absarokas and east and south of Yellowstone Lake, the wildest section of this great reservation. It is particularly necessary that a trail be built around the arms of Yellowstone Lake connecting Heart Lake and the Upper Yellowstone River. Trails over Jones Pass and Eagle Pass into the Shoshone country should be built soon, and everywhere that a trail does not parallel a road one should be constructed, because riding horses along motor roads is both unpleasant and unsafe.

It is altogether likely that when the park is extended to include the headwaters of the Yellowstone, Pacific Creek, and the Teton Mountains the trail system can be so extended as to make it the equal of any mountain trail system in existence.

PARK EXTENSION BILL IN CONGRESS.

In the annual reports for 1917 and 1918 we urged the enlargement of Yellowstone Park by the addition of the Teton Mountain region, the country north of the Buffalo Fork of the Snake River, and the territory at the headwaters of the Yellowstone River. The Mondell bill, H. R. 13350, of the Sixty-fifth Congress, passed the House of Representatives on February 17, 1919, but when it came up in the Senate an objection was interposed to its passage. The difficulties that prompted the objection were later explained satisfactorily, but in the rush of business at the close of the session there no other opportunity for consideration of the measure. Early in the Sixty-sixth Congress Mr. Mondell introduced H. R.

was

1 See p. 1233 for committee report on H. R. 13350, containing favorable reports of both the Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture.

1412, similar to the bill of the previous session, and this legislation is now pending.

Some opposition has developed against this project, but much of it is caused by a misunderstanding of the terms of the bill. On the other hand, a few of the opponents are seeking grazing privileges in the extension area, especially in the Buffalo Fork region. All existing rights and privileges enjoyed in the country proposed for addition to the park are fully protected in the Mondell bill. Practically all of the territory is within the boundaries of a State game preserve. All of it is in a forest reserve at the present time. It Lelongs absolutely to the Federal Government. Both the Interior Department and the Department of Agriculture have indorsed the extension plan, and there seems to be no good reason why the project should not be adopted except that the Buffalo Fork region might be needed for the pasturage of cattle. The Biological Survey, officers of the Forest Service, and others who have studied the problem of the southern herd of elk declare that this Buffalo Fork territory is needed for summer range for the elk. If this is the situation, it must always serve this purpose and ought to be put in the park. Every precaution must be taken henceforth to protect this elk herd regardless of demands for increased grazing privileges.

So far as its utilization is concerned, the extension area is almost in a park status at the present time. When placed in the park its trails and roads would be repaired and extended, but in other respects it would be maintained in its present state. By special authority of Congress, approximately 30 miles of roads in this region are now maintained by the National Park Service.1

THE TETONS VALUABLE ONLY FOR PARK PURPOSES.

The Teton Mountains and the headwaters of the Yellowstone River can never be put to any commercial use. There should be no question about their preservation forever in a state of nature as a part of the park. These magnificent Tetons are each year becoming better known, and already hundreds of tourists have claimed them for the park. Naturally belonging to the park, they should be formally added at the earliest practicable date, in order that immediate steps may be taken to render them more accessible to Yellowstone visitors. The statement of any other merits of this project would merely be a reiteration of arguments of my last report, and the reasons set forth in the House report on the extension bill already referred to in the footnote.

THE MENACE OF IRRIGATION PROJECTS.

Since the close of the war, certain irrigation works have been projected which contemplate the use of waters of Yellowstone Park. I am not advised as to the details of these projects, but they comprehend plans for the utilization of Yellowstone, Lewis, Shoshone, and Heart Lakes and the Falls River Basin as storage reservoirs. With possibly one exception, all of these plans propose the construction of dams, the raising of the water levels of the lakes, and the flooding of timbered land along the lake shores. In the case of the Falls River project, a vast area of forested parks and marshes

1 See sundry civil act of July 19, 1919, on p. 1218.