At the time of this book's publication in 1919, the national park system in the United States was barely three years old, though national parks had existed for almost fifty years. In this excerpt from his book on the National Park system of the United States, the author explains why the national parks in America are the best in the world.
(1) The National Parks of the United States are areas of supreme scenic splendor or other unique quality which Congress has set apart for the pleasure and benefit of the people. At this writing they number eighteen, sixteen of which lie within the boundaries of the United States and are reached by rail and road. Those of greater importance have excellent roads, good trails, and hotels or hotel camps, or both, for the accommodation of visitors; also public camp grounds where visitors may pitch their own tents. Outside the United States there are two national parks, one enclosing three celebrated volcanic craters, the other conserving the loftiest1 mountain on the continent.
(2) The starting point for any consideration of our national parks necessarily is the recently realized fact of their supremacy in world scenery. It was the sensational force of this realization which intensely attracted public attention at the outset of the new movement; many thousands hastened to see these wonders, and their reports spread the tidings2 throughout the land and gave the movement its increasing impetus3.
(3) The simple facts are these:
(4) The Swiss Alps, except for several unmatchable individual features, are excelled in beauty, sublimity4 and variety by several of our own national parks, and these same parks possess other distinguished individual features unrepresented in kind or splendor in the Alps.
(5) The Canadian Rockies are more than matched in rich coloring by our Glacier National Park. Glacier is the Canadian Rockies done in Grand Canyon colors. It has no peer.
(6) The Yellowstone outranks by far any similar volcanic area in the world. It contains more and greater geysers5 than all the rest of the world together; the next in rank are divided between Iceland and New Zealand. Its famous canyon is alone of its quality of beauty. Except for portions of the African jungle, the Yellowstone is probably the most populated wild animal area in the world, and its wild animals are comparatively fearless, even sometimes friendly.
(7) Mount Rainier has a single-peak glacier6 system whose equal has not yet been discovered. Twenty-eight living glaciers, some of them very large, spread, octopus-like, from its center. It is four hours by rail or motor from Tacoma.
(8) Crater Lake is the deepest and bluest accessible lake in the world, occupying the hole left after one of our largest volcanoes had slipped back into earth's interior through its own rim.
(9) Yosemite possesses a valley whose compelling beauty the world acknowledges as supreme. The valley is the center of eleven hundred square miles of high altitude7 wilderness.
(10) The Sequoia contains more than a million sequoia trees, twelve thousand of which are more than ten feet in diameter, and some of which are the largest and oldest living things in the wide world.
(11) The Grand Canyon of Arizona is by far the hugest and noblest example of erosion in the world. It is gorgeously carved and colored. In sheer sublimity it offers an unequalled spectacle8.
(12) Mount McKinley stands more than 20,000 feet above sea level, and 17,000 feet above the surrounding valleys. Scenically, it is the world's loftiest mountain, for the monsters of the Andes and the Himalayas which surpass it in altitude can be viewed closely only from valleys from five to ten thousand feet higher than McKinley's northern valleys.
(13) The Hawaii National Park contains the fourth greatest dead crater in the world, the hugest living volcano, and the Kilauea Lake of Fire, which is unique and draws visitors from the world's four quarters.
(14) These are the principal features of America's world supremacy... No wonder, then, that the American public is overjoyed with its recently realized treasure, and that the Government looks confidently to the rapid development of its new-found economic asset. The American public has discovered America.
1highest
2Information; news
3The force by which something moves; making something move
4Gorgeous, glorious
5Springs in which heat below the surface occasionally sends a column of water high into the air aboveground
6A large mass or river of ice that is moving slowly
7The height at which an object, such as a mountain, building, or aerial vehicle, rises
8Visually striking or beautiful
Select the correct answer. How does the author connect the ideas about the parks in America throughout the passage? A. by comparing and contrasting their characteristics B. by listing them in order of importance C. by explaining why each one is unique D. by providing information on how to visit them