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MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK 
 
 HEARING 
 
 BEFORE THE 
 
 F 27 
 
 
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 Copy 
 
 ■^ ■ 
 
 2 
 
 SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE 
 COMMITTEE ON THE PUBLIC LANDS 
 
 1>r_. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
 
 SIXTY-FIFTH CONGRESS 
 
 SECOND SESSION 
 
 ON 
 
 H. R. 11935 
 
 A BILL TO ESTABLISH THE MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK 
 
 IN THE STATE OF MAINE 
 
 MAY 30, 1918 
 
 WASHINGTON 
 
 GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 
 
 1918 
 
3." ©f D. 
 
 APR 28 1919 
 
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MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 
 
 House of Representatives, 
 Subcommittee of the Committee on the Public Lands, 
 
 Thursday, May 30, 1918. 
 
 The committee met at 10 o'clock a. m., Hon. John N. Tillman pre- 
 siding. 
 
 There were also present Representatives McClintic and Mays. 
 
 STATEMENTS OF HON. JOHN A. PETERS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
 CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MAINE; MR. GEORGE B. DORR. 
 CUSTODIAN SIEUR DE MONTS NATIONAL MONUMENT ; AND MR. 
 H. M. ALBRIGHT, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR NATIONAL PARK 
 SERVICE. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. Gentlemen, we have met this morning for the pur- 
 pose of listening to the advocates of H. R. 11935, a bill introduced 
 by Mr. Peters of Maine to establish the Mount Desert National Park 
 in the State of Maine. Mr. Peters, the Chair will recognize you for 
 whatever statement you desire to make, and I will ask you to take 
 charge of the hearing and introduce whatever witnesses you desire to 
 present to the committee. 
 
 Mr. Peters. I will do so, Mr. Chairman. I want to briefly de- 
 scribe the origin of this proposition. On the coast of Maine, on the 
 island of Mount Desert, a tract of land of about 5,000 acres now, with 
 additions of 5,000 more in contemplation and ready to be added, is 
 now owned by the United States as a national monument, accepted 
 by the President in 1916 under the statute of 1906 authorizing him 
 to do so. This property is of extraordinary scenic and historical and 
 tourist value. The details of it I will ask Mr. George B. Dorr, who 
 is here and who is the custodian appointed over it by the Secretary 
 of the Interior, and who is also, by the way, one of the selectmen of 
 the town of Bar Harbor, in which a large portion of this land is sit- 
 uated — to explain to you presently. This property was acquired by 
 public-spirited individuals, large!}' at the instigation of Mr. Dorr, 
 who has been devoting years of his activities to getting it together, 
 for the purpose of giving it to the Government to be used as a 
 national park. I say national park, because that is the way people 
 look at it, but it is now legally and technically a national monument. 
 
 In the sundry civil appropriation bill of this year an appropria- 
 tion was asked for by the Department of the Interior for the care 
 and preservation of this property, and for the building of some 
 necessary roads and paths, and for other purposes. In the course of 
 the hearing before the subcommittee of the Appropriations Com- 
 mittee we understood it was suggested by members of the committee. 
 
4 MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 
 
 especially the chairman, Mr. Sherley, that the name by which this 
 monument was known, that of Sieur cle Monts, the French explorer 
 who came down on that coast in 1604 and discovered the country, be 
 changed. This name, of course, does not exist locally any more. It 
 Avas suggested, as I say, that the name of the park be changed, and 
 it was thought that possibly the Committee on Appropriations might 
 change it in its bill. But the Park Service of the Interior De- 
 partment and other interested persons thought it might be undesir- 
 able to have that done in an appropriation bill, and with the co- 
 operation and consent of the Secretary of the Interior this bill was 
 introduced to change this monument from a national monument 
 technically and legally to a national park, and to change the name 
 from Sieur de Monts Monument to the Mount Desert National Park, 
 which would be its common name and would identify the park, 
 because Mount Desert in the eastern part of the country is a well 
 known place where people resort for recreation and health from all 
 over the eastern section of the country, east of the Mississippi Eiver. 
 This bill originated in that thought of the Committee on Appropria- 
 tions and had for its purpose changing the name to a more common 
 and identifying one, and making certain other technical changes to 
 the end that the reservation should be legally a national park as 
 well as practically a national park, which it is now. You gentlemen 
 know better about this than I do, but there is no substantial differ- 
 ence as it is now between a national monument and a national park. 
 It is actually a national park ; it is treated as such, used as such, and 
 in order to get the benefit of a national park, it is desired to have 
 it technically and legally a national park. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. Just what significance has the term " Mount 
 Desert"? 
 
 Mr. Peters. Mount Desert is the name of that island. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. Why was it named that? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. That name was given it by Champlain, in September, 
 1604, when he came sailing into Frenchmans Bay and named the 
 island from its bare-topped mountains. It was the first land on our 
 coast that he reached. He left the colony which De Monts was es- 
 tablishing at the mouth of the St. Croix River, our present national 
 boundary, and sailed down the coast until the reached this island, 
 which he landed on and named. 
 • Mr. McClintic. What year did you say that was in ? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. 1604. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. I wanted to know why he selected that term. What 
 significance has that name? Is it descriptive of the island or just 
 what does it mean? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. I think these photographs will show you. He says in 
 his account that the mountains were rocky and bare-topped. The 
 word "desert" in French, moreover, has a different meaning from 
 its English one, signifying simply " wild and solitary." 
 
 Mr. Peters. As I understand it, Champlain called it the Island of 
 the Desert Mountains when he sailed down and saw these tremen- 
 dous tops rising from the ocean. It is the only place on the coast 
 where such a thing occurs, and he called it the Island of the Desert 
 Mountains. It is an island about 15 or 20 miles across on the coast 
 of Maine, connected by a bridge with the mainland ; on it is the sum- 
 
MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 
 
 mer resort of Bar Harbor, in which town a portion of this property 
 lies. This map which I show you shows the property. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. How long is that bridge? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. I think about 1,800 feet. It is being rebuilt, under 
 Government direction, of iron and concrete. 
 
 Mr. Peters. There was a ford there before the bridge was built, 
 so that the connection between the mainland and the island is quite 
 easy. 
 
 Mr. Albright. Mr. Peters, when you use the word "town," you 
 mean the New England " town " which may cover a very large area ? 
 
 Mr. Peters. Yes. This island has on it now four towns making 
 up the area you see there indicated on the map. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. The term town does not mean a village but a body 
 of land? 
 
 Mr! Peters. Yes. It means the district. This town marked on 
 the map Eden has now been changed by the Legislature of Maine to 
 Bar Hartar; that represents all this land (indicating). A great 
 portion ^rit is wild and uncultivated. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. You say there are about 5,000 acres now in the 
 hands of the Government? 
 
 Mr. Peters. Yes, sir. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. And you propose to take in about 5,000 acres 
 more ? 
 
 Mr. Peters. Yes; they have in contemplation, and have arranged 
 for, an addition of 5,000 acres more without any cost to the Gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. Who owns the 5,000 additional acres at the 
 present time? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. It belongs to a public service corporation which was 
 formed to acquire and hold these lands for the purpose of transferring 
 them to the National Government. It is called the Hancock County 
 Trustees of Public Preservations. 
 
 Mr. Peters. President Eliot of Harvard is the president of that 
 corporation? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. Yes; and I am its executive officer. 
 
 Mr. Peters. It is a corporation formed without any pay to 
 anybody and was organized for the public-spirited purpose of ac- 
 quiring these and other lands through contributions made by public- 
 spirited citizens. Once acquired they can not go back into private 
 ownership. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. When the 5,000 acres are added to the other 
 5,000 acres how much more territory will remain on that island ? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. I should think the island might have about 75,000 or 
 80,000 acres on it. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. Is the balance of the land in that territory in- 
 cluded on the island good for agricultural purposes? 
 
 Mr. Peters. Much of it is, but this territory which has been 
 turned over is not suitable for agricultural purposes. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. Is any portion of the balance of the island cov- 
 • ered by timber ? 
 
 Mr. 'Peters. Yes; there is some timber there, although the prin- 
 cipal part of the remaining timber is on the part which has been 
 turned over to the Government. 
 
6 MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 
 
 Mr. Dorr. Around the mountain bases there is a good deal of very 
 interesting forest. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. Is there territory now in the park, or monument, 
 or in the territory to be taken into the park, that is covered with 
 timber ? 
 
 Mr. Peters. It is covered partly with timber, but not entirely. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. There is a sufficient amount, however, to make it 
 an attractive place for a park? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. Oh, yes; more than that. 
 
 Mr. Peters. It is the most beautiful and most useful place for a 
 public park that there is anywhere in the East. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. Mr. Peters, I would be glad if you would develop at 
 some length the characteristics of the park. 
 
 Mr. Peters. I will read you the letter of Secretary Lane, which 
 describes many of those things. 
 
 Thk Ski retary of the Interior, 
 
 Washington, Map 15, 1918. 
 
 My Dear Mr. Ferris: I have your request of May (5, 1918. for a report on 
 H. R. 11935, " A bill to establish the Mount Desert National Park in the State 
 of Maine." 
 
 While this measure proposes to create a new member of the national park 
 system, its effect, if enacted into law, would be to merely change the name of 
 the Sieur de Monts National Monument and promote this area to the national 
 park status, at the same time adequately providing for its extension and de- 
 velopment along well-defined lines. As this monument is already under the 
 jurisdiction of this department, and immediately under the control of the Na- 
 tional Park Service, by virtue of the act of August 25, 1916, the National 
 Park Service Act (39 Stat., 535), the only important question involved in this 
 legislation is whether the monument lands are worthy of advancement to the 
 national park class. I believe that the national park should be established for 
 the following reasons : 
 
 First : Mount Desert Island has important historic value. It is the place 
 where Champlain first landed on this coast, and the French had a station here 
 years before the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers. 
 
 Second : Scenically its impressive headlands give Mount Desert the distinc- 
 tion of combining sea and mountain. These headlands are by far the loftiest 
 of our Atlantic coast. Their high, rounded summits, often craggy, and their 
 splendid granite shelves form a background for a rugged shore line and an 
 island-dotted harbor which is one of the finest that even the Maine coast can 
 present. Back of the shore is a mountain and lake wilderness which is typical 
 in a remarkable degree of the range of Appalachian scenery. 
 
 Third : From the point of view of conservation, the value of the proposed 
 park can hardly be overestimated. The forests are largely primeval. Oaks, 
 beeches, birches, maples, ashes, poplars, and many other deciduous trees of our 
 eastern ranges, here found in full luxuriance, mingle with groves of pine and 
 giant hemlock. The typical shrubs of northeastern America are in equal 
 abundance. Wild flowers abound. There are few spots, if any, which can 
 combine the variety and luxuriance of the eastern forests in such small 
 compass. 
 
 The rocks also have their distinction. This was the first part of the conti- 
 nent to emerge from the prehistoric sea. Archean granites in original exposure 
 such as these, though common in eastern Canada, are rare in the United States. 
 Worn by the ice sheets of the glacial period, eroded by the frosts and rains of 
 the ages, their bases carved by the sea, their surfaces painted by the mosses 
 and lichens of to-day, they are exhibits of scientific interest as well as beauty. 
 
 Still another distinction is Mount Desert's wealth of bird life. All of the 
 conditions for a bird sanctuary in the East seem to be here fulfilled. Once 
 Mount Desert was the home of many deer, some of which are now returning 
 from the mainland. Moose haunt it still occasionally. Once its streams 
 abounded in beaver, and will again after a few of these animals are planted 
 in its protected valleys. 
 
 Fourth : From a recreational standpoint, the Mount Desert Park would be 
 capable of giving pleasure in the summer months to hundreds of thousands of 
 
MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. ;7 
 
 people living east of the Mississippi River. Last year it was visited by more 
 than 50,000 individuals. The island is accessible by automobile, railroad, and 
 boat, and is only a relatively few hours distant from many large eastern 
 cities. Developed as a national park in the interests of all the people, this 
 reservation will become one of the greatest of our public assets. 
 
 The Sieur de Monts National Monument was established by proclamation of 
 the President, July 8, 1916, under the act of June 8, 1906, " An act for the 
 preservation of American antiquities" (34 Stat.. 225). A copy of this procla- 
 mation is inclosed. 
 
 The area of the monument is approximately 5,000 acres. All of this land was 
 secured by purchase, or through donation, by the Hancock County Trustees of 
 Public Reservations, was conveyed by this corporation to the United States 
 and accepted by me under the authority of the Monuments Act. Since the 
 establishment of the reservation, additional tracts of land to the extent of 
 5.000 acres have been secured and tendered to the Government. I have indi- 
 cated that I will accept these lands as soon as the deeds and other instruments 
 of title have been examined and found satisfactory in all respects. The reserva- 
 tion, therefore, may lie regarded as having a total area of approximately 
 10,000 acres. Ultimately this will be extended to 20,000 acres through the con- 
 tinued efforts of the public-spirited gentlemen who are devoting their time and 
 personal funds to the development of this park enterprise. 
 
 I have no criticism to make of the form of the pending bill, and I hope that 
 the committee may give it early and favorable consideration. 
 Cordially, yours. 
 
 Franklin K. Lane, 
 
 Secretary. 
 
 Hon. Scott Ferris, 
 
 Chairman Committee on Public L-ands, 
 
 House of Representatives. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. Mr. Peters, I also suo-o-est that you insert in the 
 record at thi^ point a copy of the hill. 
 Mr. Peters. Yes. 
 (The bill referred to follows:) 
 
 [PI. R. 11935, 65th Congress, 2d Session.] 
 A bill to establish the Mount Desert National Park in the State of Maine. 
 
 Be, if enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States 
 of America in Congress assembled, That the tracts of land, easements, and 
 other real estate heretofore known as the Sieur de Monts National Monument, 
 situated on Mount Desert Island, in the county of Hancock and Stale of Maine, 
 established and designated as a national monument under the act of June 
 eighth, nineteen hundred and six, entitled "An act for the preservation of 
 American antiquities." by presidential proclamation of July eighth, nineteen 
 hundred and sixteen, is hereby declared to be a national park and dedicated as 
 a public park for the benefit and enjoyment of the people under the name of 
 the Mount Desert National Park. 
 
 Sec. 2. That the administration, protection, and promotion of said Mount 
 r>osert National Park shall be exercised under the direction of the Secretary of 
 the Interior, by the National Park Service, subject to the provisions of the 
 act of August twenty-fifth, nineteen hundred and sixteen, entitled "An act 
 to establish a National Park Service, and for other purposes," and acts addi- 
 tional thereto or amendatory thereof. 
 
 Sec. 3. That the Secretary of the Interior is hereby authorized in his discre- 
 tion to accept in behalf of the United States such other property on said Mount 
 Desert Island, including lands, easements, buildings, and moneys as may be 
 donated for the extension or improvement of said park. 
 
 Mr. Peters. The Chairman has asked me to develop the descrip- 
 tion of the territory there, and I will ask Mr. Dorr to state in gen- 
 eral the character of this land and to answer any questions that are 
 asked. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. Before yon take your seat, Mr. Peters. I would 
 like to ask you a question. Are there any well-made roads inside the 
 park now ?' 
 
8 MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 
 
 Mr. Peters. I refer that part of the matter to Mr. Dorr, because 
 he is familiar with it. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. Suppose you let him develop that, then. I believe 
 you are not asking any present appropriation. 
 
 Mr. Peters. Yes, we are; but in the appropriation bill, not here. 
 
 Mr. Mays. Have you had any appropriation heretofore? 
 
 Mr. Peters. No, sir. 
 
 Mr. Albright. We have used some funds there, possibly as much as 
 $150, in the past two years, from our general monument fund. 
 
 Mr. Mays. A negligible amount ? 
 
 Mr. Albright. Yes. 
 
 Mr. Peters. I will now ask Mr. Dorr to make a statement. Mr. 
 Dorr is the custodian of the property, and has been on the board of 
 selectmen of the town of Bar Harbor and is the gentleman through 
 whose eiforts, almost entirely, this property was gotten together and 
 presented to the Government. 
 
 Mr. Dorr. Will you ask me the points you want to bring out? 
 
 Mr. Tillman. I think the committee would prefer that you begin 
 in your own way and give us a full and complete description of this 
 property. 
 
 Mr. Dorr. It is, briefly, a bold range of deeply divided mountains 
 carved by the ice-sheet out of a once single block of granite and 
 about 15 miles in length, facing the ocean. The coast about it is a 
 sunken coast, a drowned coast as they say geologically, and is rich 
 in bays and islands formed by the flooding of the ancient surface. 
 Mount Desert Island has large bays, Frenchmans Bay and Blue 
 Hill Bay, on its eastern and western sides, connecting on the north, 
 From the western bay island-sheltered waterways, or thoroughfares 
 as they are called down there, extend unbrokenly to Penobscot Bay 
 and River, 40 miles away, so that Champlain, when he was guided 
 up the river by the Indians in 1604, after visiting the Mount Desert 
 Island, described the latter as a headland at the river's mouth. The 
 south side of the island faces the open ocean and you get magnificent 
 displays of surf there. 
 
 I dwell on that feature of the sheltered bays and waterways because 
 I feel it will play an exceedingly important part hereafter in the 
 usefulness of the area as a park. These waters are all nationally 
 owned, lying within the 3-mile limit, and can be used freely in 
 connection with the park for house-boating, sailing, canoeing, fishing, 
 bathing, and all kinds of water sports to a practically unlimited 
 extent. . 
 
 Deep valleys separate the mountains, extending at one point be- 
 low the level of the sea, so that the island is penetrated at its center 
 by what is called Somes Sound, the only true glacial fiord we have 
 on our coast. It extends inland some 8 miles and nearly divides the 
 island into two. Mr. Franklin Roosevelt, the Assistant Secretary of 
 the Navy, told me he had taken a destroyer up that sound and turned 
 it on a single circuit without backing, which he thought was re- 
 markable as exhibiting its depth. 
 
 Mr. Peters: Mr. Chairman, as showing the depth of that sound, 
 there are granite quarries on the western side and a large 3-masted 
 granite schooner came up there at one time and was sunk in the 
 sound, and the schooner was in no way visible afterward because the 
 water was so deep. 
 
MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PAEK. 9 
 
 Mr. Dorr. It would make a submarine base, incidentally, as im- 
 pregnable as that on the Dalmatian Coast at Cattaro, which the 
 Austrians have made such use of in the present war. and the scenery 
 on entering it is equally magnificent, This picture [indicating] was 
 taken from one of the mountains that border it and which has been 
 lately added to the park. It shows the entrance to the sound and 
 the splendid harbor, island-sheltered, into which it opens [indicat- 
 ing]. This mountain has been named by the Government Acadia 
 Mountain, all of this region having formed part of the early French 
 Province of Acadia. The whole fiord forms a wonderful exhibit of 
 ancient volcanism and recent glacial erosion. The cliffs are very 
 bold; the water deep. 
 
 Nearly all of the other valleys eroded by the ice in its slow south- 
 ward movement are filled with lakes. This [indicating] is where 
 we get our water for Bar Harbor. We have magnificent water sup- 
 plies, both lakes and springs. 
 
 The bases of these mountains and their lower slopes are clothed 
 with forest. The early summer ownership upon the island resulted 
 in saving primeval forest growths which could hardly be matched 
 elsewhere on the New England coast, stripped generally for its ease 
 of shipment. 
 
 With regard to wild flowers, I here submit a statement from Prof. 
 Fernald, Chairman of the Botanical Faculty at Harvard. It is the 
 best single area he knows for preserving and exhibiting in a wide 
 range those of the northeastern section of the country. 
 
 With regard to birds. Mr. Forbush, the State ornithologist of Mas- 
 sachusetts, who made a study of it for us, says in a statement I submit 
 also that the opportunity it offers is extraordinary, and I submit be- 
 sides a letter from Mr. Pearson, secretary of the National Association 
 of Audubon Societies, which says that in all the years their association 
 has been engaged in seeking to establish refuges or sanctuaries for 
 wild bird life no area in the East of such importance to wild life, 
 bird or other, has been set aside as sanctuary as that contained within 
 the borders of the Sieur de Monts National Monument. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. Mr. Dorr, speaking of bird life, do you mean by 
 that that it is a suitable place for the ducks that come up there from 
 the South in the spring? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. Certain favorable waters there used to be black with 
 them in the spring and fall. This tract here [indicating on map] is 
 the one we are securing expressly for the protection of these migrat- 
 ing birds. 
 
 Mr. McClixtic. Is this appropriate ground for wild ducks and 
 geese ? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. Yes; it used to be covered with them in their season. 
 
 Mr. McClixtic. Let me ask you, how warm does it get there in the 
 summer time in comparison with other sections of the United States? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. It has a relatively even temperature on account of the 
 ocean. During summer we have cool nights and warm sunshine in 
 the day, but the air is always stimulating and bracing. 
 
 Mr. McClixtic How long are the summers? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. Plant growth there begins actively toward the end of 
 April, about a fortnight later than in Massachusetts. 
 
 Mr. McClixtic. When does the bathing season close up there? 
 
10 MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 
 
 Mr. Dorr; I have been in bathing there in December. 
 
 Mr. Peters. I do not know of anybody else who would want to go 
 in at that time. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. Are there any large cities in close proximity to 
 this area? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. Bangor is the nearest. But this park would be used 
 principally by people from beyond the State, not by Maine people. 
 I went there myself from Boston as a boy. My father bought some 
 land there then, on part of which we built a summer home and part 
 of which has now been donated to the Government. 
 
 The friends I have made there have come from the whole country 
 to the eastward of the Rockies, from New Orleans, from St. Louis, 
 from Cincinnati and Chicago, and largely from the South. ,We 
 used to have a number of Richmond people and Confederate service 
 officers and their families there regularly at one time, and many 
 people come there always from Washington and Baltimore, from 
 Philadelphia and New York. It is a place of national resort, not 
 in any sense a local area. 
 
 Mr. McClintic Is the surrounding country pretty thickly settled ? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. It is an agricultural country, largely wooded still, 
 where farming and market gardening are being gradually developed 
 to supply the people who come to the shore in summer. The hay 
 production is large, that of the State being the second greatest of 
 any in the country, I believe; a little farther south lies the corn 
 belt which supplies practically all the corn used for canning. For 
 summer vegetables, when rightly grown, the region is unsurpassed. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. How far is Bangor, Me., from this particular 
 park? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. About 50 miles, according to the road, and 40 miles as 
 the crow flies. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. What kind of transportation facilities do you 
 have to have to get to the park? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. There is a railroad running from Bangor to the ferry, 
 as we call it. They do not come across on the bridge, but ferry about 
 8 miles across the bay. There was talk of coming in by way of the 
 bridge a few years ago, but the plan was given up — largely, I think, 
 because the summer visitors did not want to lose, the beautiful ap- 
 proach across the bay. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. There is a ferry service across the bay to this 
 area ? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. The route lies there [indicating]. It is a beautiful 
 sail across. 
 
 Mr. Peters. Passengers are transferred from the railroad to 
 steamboats. 
 
 Mr. McClintic If this area were made into a park, what sort of 
 railroad accommodations or connections would the people have in 
 reaching it? 
 
 Mr. Peters. They are the best in the world. In the summer, be- 
 ginning early in June, there is a train running from Washington 
 direct to Bar Harbor, called the Bar Harbor express. You get 
 on that train at the station in Washington, and do not get off until 
 you get to Bar Harbor, or until you are transferred to the ferry. 
 
 Mr. McClintic How far is Bar Harbor from this area? 
 
MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 11 
 
 Mr. Peters. The park lies partly in Bar Harbor, reaching almost 
 
 to the town. 
 
 Mr. McClintic How are the automobile roads? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. More people have been coming during the last two or 
 three years by motor than by train. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. Are the roads in good condition ? 
 
 Mr. Peters. The State of Maine has made a bond issue and has 
 built a very fine road from Ellsworth, which is the county seat of 
 that county, to Bar Harbor, and there is a very good road from 
 Bangor to Ellsworth. There is a system of roads being built in 
 Maine that will carry all of the tourist travel from Boston. Port- 
 land, and Gloucester, down into this country. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. Are there any roads inside of the park? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. Yes, sir. 
 
 Mr. Peters. On that point of transportation, let me say, I live 
 at Ellsworth, the county seat of that county, and in summer I think 
 there are seven trains a day each way, passing through my town to 
 and from Bar Harbor. Then, there is a regular boat service from 
 Portland and Boston. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. If this should be made into a park, would there 
 be roads leading to every part of it? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. There are roads leading to every part of the park and 
 some through the park. The town of Bar Harbor has expended 
 thousands of dollars — approximately $12,000, I think, since the park 
 was formed, two years ago — in improving those running throughout. 
 The park is one, however, that lends itself to an intensive develop- 
 ment by footpaths and bridle paths rather than to an extensive one 
 by quicldy traversed motor roads. An area of 20,000 or even 30.000 acres 
 would be run through very quickly in an automobile, but one can 
 wander over such a tract as this by foot and bridle paths for weeks 
 and not exhaust its interest. The secenery is such that every hun- 
 dred acres in it has individual interest. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. There are sufficient bridle paths and footpaths 
 through the park? 
 
 Mr. Peters. Yes, sir. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. What are the hotel facilities at Bar Harbor? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. They are very considerable, but they will be extended 
 in connection with the park. 
 
 Mr. Peters. They already have very large hotel accommodations 
 at Bar Harbor. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. How close are the hotels to the park? 
 
 Mr. Peters. Within a short walk of 5 or 10 minutes. 
 
 Mr. Dorr. They lie all around it at different points on the coast. 
 The villages, sprung from early fishing settlements, all lie on the 
 coast. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. Does anybody have any supervision of the hotels 
 so as to protect the public from excessive charges if complaints of 
 that kind should be lodged? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. No, sir; that would have to be developed with the de- 
 velopment of the park. 
 
 Mr. Peters. Some of those hotels have been there for 30 or 40 
 years. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. Are they excessive in their charges? 
 
12 MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 
 
 Mr. Peters. There are all grades of hotels there. 
 
 Mr. Dorr. You can get good board and lodging there as low as 
 $15 per week. 
 
 Mr. Peters. There are all grades of hotel accommodations for 
 people who want different kinds of provision. 
 
 Mr. McCeintic. The reason I ask that question is because in some 
 of our western parks we allow hotel companies to come in and build 
 hotels, but they are run under the supervision of the Government to 
 a certain extent so that the public may be protected along certain 
 lines. 
 
 Mr. Peters. The situation there protects itself. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. If we make this property into a park, just as we 
 have made the other parks, we must in some way, if it is possible, 
 take care of the interests of the traveling public. 
 
 Mr. Peters. I would suggest that that situation for the present, 
 and in the future so far as we can foresee, takes care of itself, 
 because there are resorts all around the property. Each of those 
 resorts has numerous hotels competing with each other, and there 
 are boarding houses at some of those places where people are accom- 
 modated by the natives for a longer or shorter time in the summer 
 and fall. There is a considerable number of them, and the accom- 
 modations are very excellent and very reasonable on account of 
 competition and for other reasons. 
 
 Mr. Mays. Is there any privately owned land within the present 
 boundaries of the monument? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. No, sir; the Secretary of the Interior would not accept 
 the tract until we had obtained ever}^ piece of property that lay in- 
 side of its lines. There are no private rights or easements of any 
 kind within its boundaries. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. I notice the picture of a house inside the park 
 that is now being used by the custodian : Who built that house ? Was 
 it contributed \ 
 
 Mr. Dorr. Frankly, I did. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. I wanted to know whether some good man con- 
 tributed it. 
 
 Mr. Dorr. I wanted to secure the situation for the future. It lies 
 right on the border of Bar Harbor, and I got the land opposite it 
 given for a public athletic field, parade ground and park. The 
 nearer mountains of the park lie in full view from it and from it 
 starts the path system that connects it with*Bar Harbor. 
 
 Our idea as to the park has been to develop it for the brain work- 
 ers of the country, people who would be responsive to the beauty 
 and inspiration of its scenery, and can get away for a brief or longer 
 holiday. They are going there now, in numbers, but what we want 
 to provide for specially is the need of people of moderate or narrow 
 means who would appreciate what it has to give in beauty, interest, 
 and climate. Areas are being selected now within the park where 
 similar buildings to those provided in the western parks may be 
 built in the future as soon as funds are available for the park's de- 
 velopment in connection with them. 
 
 Mr. Tillmak. Are there any other national parks or monuments 
 in the New England States? 
 
MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 13 
 
 Mr. Dorr. No, sir; this is the only one east of Arkansas. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. The proposition is to make that the principal and 
 most attractive northeastern resort? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. I think it is likely to be the only national park area 
 to the north of Washington and east of Indiana. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. How much appropriation are you asking for? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. The secretary made his own estimate after seeing the 
 park last summer, asking for $50,000. It was an estimate based on 
 his judgment of its needs and opportunities for usefulness, and on 
 what had been previously given other parks. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. How does that compare with the amounts given 
 to other national monuments or parks? In other words, in the 
 creation of other parks, we have had a uniform provision relative to 
 the amount of the appropriation, have we not? 
 
 Mr. Albright. That was in the case of those big undeveloped 
 areas where practically nobody was going at the time. For in- 
 stance, there is an inhibtion in the organic acts establishing Mt. Mc- 
 Kinley and Hawaii National Parks, limiting the annual appropria- 
 tion to $10,000. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. What was the attitude of the Appropriations 
 Committee toward this project? 
 
 Mr. Albright. It is impossible to say just what attitude the com- 
 mittee has, so far as the new development is concerned, because the 
 sundry civil bill has not been reported out yet, but I can say this, 
 that there was a tremendous amount of interest taken in the project 
 by the Appropriations Committee, and there was absolutely no 
 adverse comment on the project or upon any of the ideas suggested 
 for its development. This area is already visited by pretty close to 
 60,000 people, making it the third national park area in point of 
 patronage. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. What percentage of those people live there ? 
 
 Mr. Albright. A very small percentage. 
 
 Mr. Peters. Let me say this: I live nearby there and I know the 
 natives who live around there. I do not suppose that 1 man out of 
 100 who lives there knows of the beauty of this place; but if it is 
 developed as a national park the local people will take more interest 
 in it. 
 
 Mr. Albright. You will find a smaller percentage of local people 
 visiting Mount Desert than you will find of local people visiting 
 Yellowstone, Yosemite, and some of the other large national parks. 
 The percentage of local people visiting the western parks is some- 
 times quite large. I think very few Maine and Massachusetts people 
 visit this park. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. I would like to hear something in regard to the fish- 
 ing proposition. I think this subcommittee is interested in fishing. 
 Suppose you describe the lakes in there, the kind of water you have, 
 and the kind of fish that are now in those lakes. 
 
 Mr. Dorr. The water in the lakes is very pure, but at the same 
 time it is good fishing water. As you know, some pure waters are 
 relatively barren of fish, but fish are naturally abundant in these 
 waters. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. What kind of fish? 
 
14 MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 
 
 Mr. Dorr. Trout and salmon trout. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. Game fish. 
 
 Mr. Dorr. Yes, sir. In addition to that, we have splendid deep- 
 :->ea fishing all around. The people do quite as much deep-sea fishing 
 and fishing along the rocky coast as in the lakes. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. Have you made any effort to stock those lakes with 
 fish from the Government hatcheries? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. Yes, sir ; we have introduced a number lately. We have 
 one Government fish hatchery quite close to Mr. Peters's home, and 
 it is ready to ship, and does ship annually extensive supplies of fish. 
 Then, we have within easy reach from the park other lakes on the 
 mainland, where the people can go within an easy half-hour's motor 
 ride. The people use equally the lakes within the park and the lakes 
 outside of the park, for all bodies of water of over 8 or 10 acres in 
 extent in Maine are what we call great ponds, and are open to the 
 public. 
 
 Mr. Mays. What species of trout do you have there — eastern brook 
 or rainbow ? 
 
 Mr. Dork . We do not have the rainbow trout. We have two 
 species of trout, but I can not at the moment recall their names. 
 
 Mr. Peters. Do they have the squaretail trout there? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. Yes, sir; we have the squaretail trout. 
 
 Mr. Peters. And the speckled brook trout? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. Yes, sir; the speckled brook trout. We have them both 
 abundantly. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. Are those waters cold in summer? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. Yes, sir. They stay cold the whole season through. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. I should think you could have the rainbow trout 
 there. 
 
 Mr. Mats. Besides the lakes, do you have any streams? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. Yes, sir; we have some good streams, streams which I 
 have seen the trout lying across in a solid mass in the spawning 
 season in the fall. It is an extraordinary sight. I have seen trout 
 18 inches long lying side by side, heading upstream forming a solid 
 mass across the brook. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. Are there any springs in the park? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. Yes, sir; there are some splendid deep-seated springs. 
 that will some day make an important feature in the park. 
 
 Mr. Mays. To what altitude do those mountains rise? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. The highest one is 1,527 feet, but as we have no build- 
 ings to show scale on them, they give the impression of a far greater 
 altitude. They are very bold, and men experienced in Swiss moun- 
 tain climbing, have told me that there are places on them that the 
 Swiss guides would not like to climb unpracticed. It is an Alpine 
 area in miniature, sculptured on one side by the sea and on the other 
 side by ice. This area is rich in lakes and streams, rich in forest 
 growth, and rich in marshlands suited to wild life. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. Is there anything else you want to add? 
 
 Mr. Peters. Unless you have some further questions to ask. I do 
 not know of anything. 
 
 Mr. Albright. Do you think it well to put some of these printed 
 statements in the records? 
 
MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 15 
 
 Mr. Peters. I would like to read a very brief extract from the 
 letter of Secretary Lane to Mr. Mather. This letter is dated May 
 13, 1918, and I will read just two paragraphs from it : 
 
 In studying new park projects, you should seek to find scenery of supreme 
 and distinctive quality or some natural feature so extraordinary or unique as 
 to be of national interest and importance. You should seek distinguished exam- 
 ples of typical forms of world architecture ; such, for instance, as the Grand 
 Canyon, as exemplifying the highest accomplishment of stream erosion, and 
 the high, rugged portion of Mount Desert Island as exemplifying the oldest 
 rock forms in America and the luxuriance of deciduous forests. * * * 
 
 It is not necessary that a national park should have a large area. The ele- 
 ment of size is of no importance as long as the park is susceptible of effective 
 administration and control. 
 
 Mr. Albright. That letter sets forth the policy of the National 
 Park Service. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. I also ask that these statements bv Mr. Lane, Mr. 
 Roosevelt, Mr. Ogden, Mr. Wickersham, Mr. Halsey, and others, be 
 printed in the record. 
 
 (The statements referred to are as follows:) 
 
 The Proposed Mount Desert National Park. 
 Statement by Hon. Franklin K. Lane, Seeretary of the Interior. 
 
 It is a true park area in the highest sense, totally different from any other 
 that we have and capable of giving untold refreshment to the great town and 
 city populations of our country to the eastward of the Mississippi. It is the 
 only national park — using the word in its descriptive sense — that fronts upon 
 the sea, and it represents at its culminating point one of the oldest and most 
 important recreation areas upon the Continent — the New England coast. 
 
 It is a tract of extraordinary variety and interest, a bold mountain chain 
 compressed within the limits of an island 15 miles across — though 70 or 80 in 
 its ocean frontage. A dozen or more separate peaks, deeply divided by lakes 
 and gorges and an ocean inlet, make up this chain. The most beautiful woods 
 remaining on that coast — once famous for its timber — lie around the mountain 
 bases. 
 
 The lands constituting the monument have been for over 60 years the object 
 of resort from all the great eastern cities, from southern ones extending to 
 New Orleans, and central ones to St. Louis. Now, over 50,000 people visit the 
 monument each summer, making it third among the national park areas in the 
 number of its visitors. Placed as it is in relation to the great eastern popu- 
 lation centers, and equally accessible by boat and motor as by train, this num- 
 ber may readily be doubled within a few years' time by right development. 
 
 The monument was made possible by the gift of citizens, and it has been gen- 
 erously added to since its creation. 
 
 The creation of this monument was not the result of chance, but of carefully 
 thought out intention; the gift that made it possible simply provided opportunity 
 for carrying that intention out. No better way of extending into the crowded 
 eastern regions of the country the immediate benefits of our national park sys- 
 tem could have been devised than that presented by the monument, which for 
 the first time gave this system access to navigable waters on a harbored coast, 
 and gave the East a national park ax*ea characteristic of its greatest recreational 
 features. 
 
 STATEMENT OF HON. THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 
 
 It is our one eastern national park and gives for the first time to the crowded 
 eastern portion of the country the opportunity to share directly and immediately 
 in the benefits of our national park system. Its striking ocean frontage makes 
 it unlike every other park. 
 
 I have watched with keen interest the work that has led to the creation of 
 this park. Under right development it will give a healthy playground to multi- 
 
16 MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 
 
 tildes of hard-working men and women who need such a playground. Moreover, 
 it constitutes a wild life sanctuary under national guardianship at a spot where 
 such a sanctuary is greatly needed. 
 
 STATEMENT OF HON. DAVID B. OGDEN. 
 
 It is now upward of 50 years since I and my family first went to Mount Des- 
 ert Island, and I think I can say that in every intervening summer some member 
 of my family has been there. It is there that during the whole of my profes- 
 sional life I have found strength and refreshment more abundantly than I have 
 found it elsewhere either in this country or in Europe. The breezes from the 
 Atlantic, mingling with the life-giving breath of the forest of pine and spruce, 
 the matchless grandeur of the distant views, the beauty and picturesqueness of 
 the immediate surroundings, and. above all, the coolness of the atmosphere, 
 make a combination which can not be matched by the Atlantic coast north of 
 Rio de Janeiro. If ever nature indicated a beneficent purpose of affording 
 health and enjoyment to the sons of men, she has done it on Mount Desert 
 Island. 
 
 ' That it should have been set apart as a national park was, I think, one of the 
 most important peaceful events of our recent national history. 
 
 ******* 
 
 Already the statistics show that the number of visitors during the past two 
 years exceeds the number going to any other national park of recreative char- 
 acter except the Rocky Mountain Park, and I feel confident that this number, 
 great as it is, will increase with amazing rapidity in the future if means are 
 taken of enabling persons of moderate means, to whom a visit to the far West 
 is an impossibility, to come to Mount Desert Island and spend there without 
 undue expense the leisure time which the summer affords them. Everywhere 
 on the island are to be found sites of exceptional beauty for the erection of 
 small houses, and the cost of living is not excessive. There are thousands of 
 men situated as I am and have been — hard workers whose strength and vitality 
 can only be maintained by breaking away from labor for a short period — to 
 whom this park is going to prove a measureless blessing. 
 
 STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE W. WICKERSHAM. 
 
 Mount Desert Island is unique in many particulars. It is a mountainous isle, 
 surrounded by ocean and bay, and deeply indebted by estuaries of the sea. In 
 proportion to its superficial area, it embraces more beauty and presents more 
 opportunities tor places of healthful recreation than any place with which I 
 am familiar in the United States. There is a small fringe of expensive homes 
 of the wealthy which girdles a part of its perimeter. On the other hand, there 
 is a vast expanse of property most admirably adapted for summer homes of 
 people of very moderate means. For that reason it has been for years a 
 favorite resort of professional and scholastic folk all over the country. It was 
 for several years the summer resort of your compatriot, Prof. Shaler, and the 
 people who are interested in the movement to make it a national park are 
 looking to the benefit of the large class of brain workers of small means, who 
 may find there a source of reinvigoration and inspiration at small cost. In 
 addition to that, the place has great possibilities as a bird refuge, for the 
 protection of the wild-bird life of the eastern country. The climate and 
 conditions surrounding it are, I believe, exceptionally adapted to that purpose. 
 
 STATEMENT OF REV. A. W. IIALSEY, D. D. 
 
 Thirty years ago I visited Par Harbor and was charmed with its wondrous 
 beauty." For the past 15 years, every summer I have spent three or four weeks 
 at Bar Harbor, and I know something of its lure. It grows upon one with the 
 years. Congress never did a better piece of work than when it set apart this 
 "masterpiece of nature for a national park. Each year I have seen increased 
 numbers of what Abraham Lincoln called the "common people" going to the 
 park to enjoy its beauties. If proper arrangements are made, I believe this 
 number will increase rapidily with the years, as the Sieur de Monts National 
 Monument is the only national park in this section of the country where dwell 
 many millions, large numbers of whom, if the way were open, could be induced 
 
MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 17 
 
 to spend a portion of each year in this delightful resort. The appropriation 
 will aid much in making permanent what has already been done. The summer 
 residents at Bar Harbor and those who are interested in this project have 
 shown a spirit of unselfishness, of sacrifice, of high idealism, and of good 
 citizenship that I believe has not been excelled by any group of men and women 
 anywhere in the country. They should receive the hearty and cordial co- 
 operation of the Government for what they are aiming to accomplish is that 
 this park may be made available for the people. 
 
 STATEMENT OF REV. WILLIAM T. MANNING, D. D. 
 
 This park offers a quite unequalled opportunity for rest and recuperation 
 to the busy, overworked men and women in the eastern part of our country. 
 * * * It possesses extraordinary natural attractions and possibilities; it 
 can be developed without undue expenditure ; and it is far nearer at hand 
 than any other national park to the greatest number of those who need such 
 provisions. 
 
 STATEMENT OF HON. T. GILBERT PEARSON, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF AUDOBON 
 
 SOCIETIES. 
 
 Through cooperation with the Department of Agriculture, and also to 
 some extent by purchase, this association has been actively engaged the past 
 fifteen years in seeking to establish a chain of refuges or sanctuaries for wild- 
 bird life, extending from Maine to Florida and west to the Pacific coast. 
 Throughout the entire period no area of such importance to wild life has been 
 set aside as sanctuary in the Eastern . States as that contained within the 
 boundaries of the Sieur de Monts National Monument, created by Executive 
 order through the monument act, July 8, 1916. 
 
 ■STATEMENT OF BISHOP WILLIAM LAWRENCE. 
 
 I have been a summer resident of Mount Desert since 1870, and have met 
 there travelers from all over the world. All agree that there are few, if any, 
 spots anywhere which combine such qualities of mountainous area close to the 
 ocean, of exhilarating sea and mountain air, of unique forestry and fauna due 
 to its position between the cold belt of Canada and the warmer belt of Cape 
 Cod. It is bound to be a spot to which people from all parts of the United 
 States will increasingly turn ; indeed, have turned already. The only national 
 park in the East, it will give such an opportunity, moreover, for the com- 
 mingling of citizens from North, South, East and West, as is helpful for the 
 unification of the people. 
 
 STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS EWING. 
 
 I am very much interested in the plans of the Interior Department for the 
 development of the Sieur de Monts National Monument. I have been going to 
 a place bordering it on Frenchman's Bay for many years. No section of the 
 country is better suited to give opportunity for rest and recreation in the 
 summer to large numbers of people of moderate means than Mount Desert 
 Island. 
 
 It lies within easy boat and motor reach from great business and industrial 
 centers as far south at least as New York, and easy railroad reach from many 
 States. What is needed is to make its points of interest and beauty readily 
 accessible and to fit it to be a place of residence of a simple kind for the multi- 
 tudes of people who live where they can come to it. 
 
 It also seems to me that this is a time when it is peculiarly desirable to 
 develop our home resources for recreation and the upbuilding of the vitality of 
 the people, particularly the people whose lives are cast along somewhat narrow 
 lines and who need to be assisted to get out of the ruts and obtain the uplift 
 and inspiration of a spot like this. 
 
 STATEMENT OF GOVERNOR CARL E. MILLIKEN. 
 
 The State of Maine is warmly interested in the development of the na- 
 tional park upon its coast entitled the " Sieur de Monts National Monument." 
 
 64235—18 2 
 
18 MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 
 
 This park which has been the gift of citizens to the National Government, 
 occupies the most beautiful tract of land on the Atlantic coast, and has excep- 
 tional historic interest. Readily accessible from every eastern section of the 
 country, unique in landscape character and bordering on the sea, the resort to 
 it, and its value to the public as a recreative area would readily be doubled 
 in a few years' time by right development. * * * 
 
 This is the one eastern representative of the national park system, a 
 system maintained at the general expense for all the people. It stands already 
 third among the national park areas of the country in the number of its visitors 
 and has yet received no Federal aid. 
 
 STATEMENT OF JACOB H. SCHTEF. 
 
 I have been - a resident during the summer on Mount Desert Island for the 
 past 15 years ; have visited almost every nook and corner on the island, and in 
 my travels all over the United States and in foreign countries, I have found 
 no section that nature has made more attractive than Mount Desert Island. 
 I really believe that the island is one of the finest gifts God has bestowed upon 
 the people of the United States, and it is but right that they should show 
 themselves worthy of this gift by seeing to its proper protection and preser- 
 vation. 
 
 It is, therefore, a source of congratulation that the Government has taken 
 this upon itself by taking over a larger part of the island and making it into 
 a national park, and it is to be hoped that it will likewise see to the proper 
 maintenance of the newly created park through moderate expenditures as may 
 be required to make this park a real joy and benefit to the people of our 
 country, who are visiting it in ever increasing numbers. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. Mr. Albright, we would be glad to hear such state- 
 ments as you desire to make. 
 
 Mr. Albright. The attitude of our bureau could not possibly be 
 more strongly and emphatically expressed than Secretary Lane has 
 expressed it in his letter. We are enthusiastically in favor of the 
 establishment of the park. Of course, at the present time we have 
 the authority to develop this national monument in just exactly the 
 same manner that we would have if it was a national park, but we 
 do not believe that this national monument, big as it is and contain- 
 ing such extraordinary natural features should remain in that status. 
 There are probably 2 or 3 monuments in the entire group of 35 
 national monuments — not more than 5, anyway — that should be ele- 
 vated to the national park plane. I think there is one other that may 
 come before the committee in the course of two or three years, and 
 that is one in Mr. May's State, Zion National Monument, which we 
 are just now developing. The bill providing for the establishment 
 of a national park at the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, of course, 
 is now before this committee. Sieur de Morets monument, as the 
 Secretary indicated in his letter, is in the national park class, and 
 we feel that it ought to be given that superior status. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. In that connection, will you enlighten the committee 
 on the question of the distinction between a national monument and. 
 a national park? 
 
 Mr. Albright. National monuments are created by the President 
 under the act of June 8, 1906 (34 Stats., 225.) ; national parks are 
 established by act of Congress. I might read the monuments act 
 into the record. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. I think you could explain in a few words the distinc- 
 tion between the two. 
 
 Mr. Albright. This act of June 8, 1906, authorizes the President to 
 set aside as national monuments lands in the public domain which 
 possess great scientific or historic interest, or lands containing some 
 
MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 19 
 
 great historic landmark, and if lands containing features of that 
 character are not in public ownership, the Secretary of the Interior 
 is authorized to accept donations of such lands, and after accepting 
 them, he may recommend to the President the establishment of 
 monuments. Now, that act was passed on June 8, 1906, and in the 
 same year the Devil's Tower, in Wyoming, was set aside. That was 
 the first national monument. 
 
 From time to time, since the establishment of that monument, 
 nearly 40 have been created. Some have been abolished, but there 
 are now 35. Twenty-two are under the National Park Service, 11 
 under the Forest Service and 2 under the War Department. Of 
 these, only two have been established on privately owned lands, or 
 on privately owned land donated for the purpose. One is Muir 
 Woods National Monument, Cal., which was donated by former Con- 
 gressman William Kent, in 1908, and the other is the Sieur de 
 Monts National Monument. Me., which we are considering, an area 
 donated by the Hancock County trustees of public reservations on 
 July 8, 1910. Congress probably meant that areas in the monument 
 class should be set aside and protected, but that no great amount of 
 development work should be done. For instance, the cliff dwelling 
 called Montezuma Castle in Arizona is within a national monument 
 and needs only to be restored as nearly as possible to its original 
 form, and then left alone. No great area was taken in to preserve 
 these ruins. As a matter of fact, Congress did not appropriate any 
 money for national monuments until two years ago, when $3,500 was 
 appropriated for the whole monument system. Fifteen thousand 
 dollars was later appropriated for the monument in southern Utah, 
 known as the Zion National Monument. That money was appro- 
 priated to build a road in the monument, and it was completed last 
 year. Five thousand dollars was appropriated for the monuments in 
 the last sundry civil act. and this year we are asking for $14,600 for 
 the whole system. Of that $14,600 we expect to spend $5,000 on the 
 Petrified Forest National Monument in Arizona. We regarded the 
 Sieur de Monts National Monument as in a different class, and we 
 submitted a separate estimate for it, just as if it were already in the 
 >tatus of a national park. It has been alone in that situation before 
 the Appropriations Committee. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. You say you have submitted an estimate for this 
 national monument ? 
 
 Mr. Albright. Yes, sir: $50,000 was requested. When we sub- 
 mitted the estimates, we did not know that it would be the policy 
 of the Appropriations Committee not to undertake any extension 
 of roads and trails as in the past, but when we learned that was its 
 policy, when we appeared before the committee, we naturally ex- 
 pected many new projects to be eliminated. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. In the event the status of this area is changed 
 from a national monument into that of a national park, what do you 
 intend to do with the $50,000 that you have asked for, if that ap- 
 propriation is given ? 
 
 Mr. Albright. We expect 
 
 Mr. McClintic (interposing). Is the park fenced ? 
 
 Mr. Albright. No, sir ; and there is no necessity for fencing it. I 
 can not give the exact items, but probably $10,000 would be expended 
 in continuing those roads that the town authorities have already 
 
20 
 
 MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 
 
 built np to the boundaries and extending them into the park. Sev- 
 eral thousand dollars would be expended in developing the trail sys- 
 tem, and also ask for $5,000 to spend in forestry work. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. How many men would it take to keep this park 
 up in proper shape? 
 
 Mr. Albright. We have had no opportunity to study that yet, 
 having had no one in employ there. Mr. Dorr has been taking charge 
 of it as custodian, but without assistance. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. The reason I asked that question was that prob- 
 ably you covered an item of that kind in the estimates. 
 
 Mr. Albright. We have an item of only $5,000 for the protection 
 of the monument, in addition to two or three other employees, one 
 of them the chief ranger, whom we expect to employ all the year 
 round, but the administrative expense is going to be comparatively 
 light. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. Is there anything in that estimate for the con- 
 struction of buildings? 
 
 Mr. Albright. Yes. Two ranger stations. I will read our esti- 
 mate for the Sieur de Monts monument : 
 
 Sieur de Monts National Monument, Maine : For protection and improve- 
 ment, including not execeeding $1,400 for purchase, maintenance, operation, and 
 repair of a motor-driven passenger-carrying vehicle for use or rangers in ad- 
 ministration of the monument, $50,000, to be available immediately. 
 
 Employees. 
 
 Rate per 
 annum. 
 
 Estimated, 
 1919. 
 
 Salaries: 
 
 Chief ranger 
 
 Assistant rangers. 
 Clerk 
 
 Salaries . 
 
 $1,000 
 
 750 
 
 1,000 
 
 Number. 
 
 $4,250 
 
 OTHER OBJECTS OF EXPENDITURE. 
 
 Roads: 
 
 Newport Mountain road, 1J miles, $5,000 per mile 
 
 Dry Mountain road , 1 mile, $5,000 per mile 
 
 Southwest Valley road, 1 mile, $5,000 per miie 
 
 Foot and bridle paths: 
 
 Newport Mountain and Picket Mountain system, 3 miles, at $1,000 per mile. 
 Spring Heath paths to Dry Mountain, to Kebo Pass, and to the Gorge, 3 
 
 miles, at $1,000 per mile 
 
 Path through Indian Pass, 1 mile, at 50 cents per foot 
 
 Fire lanes and mountain trails, 5 miles, at $500 per mile 
 
 Wood clearing, forestry work, clearing undergrowth, checking insect depreda- 
 tions, timber diseases, or other destructive agencies 
 
 Buildings, two ranger cabins, locatea, respectively, on Newport Mountain road 
 
 and Southwest Valley road, at $1,000 ' 
 
 Entrances, 2. at $1,000 
 
 Plan for park development, including mountain road and other surveys, en- 
 trances, and roadside frontages 
 
 Miscellaneous: 
 
 Signs for marking boundaries, roads, etc 
 
 Flagpole 
 
 Purchase of motor-driven passenger-carrying vehicle for use of rangers in ad- 
 ministration of the monument, including maintenance, operation, and 
 
 repair thereof 
 
 Rent of office, including janitor service, light, and heat 
 
 Office equipment, filing furniture, typewriting machine, stationery, telegraph 
 and telephone, express, freight, etc ". , 
 
 7,500 
 5, 000 
 5,000 
 
 3,000 
 
 3,000 
 2, (M0 
 2,500 
 
 5,009 
 
 2,000 
 2,000 
 
 5.000 
 
 300 
 10 
 
 1,400 
 1,000 
 
 400 
 
 Total. 
 
 50,000 
 
 We submitted this estimate, gentlemen, just as we submitted esti- 
 mates for the other national parks, not as a national-monument proj- 
 ect at all, because this region does not lend itself to large develop- 
 
MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 21 
 
 ment under the National-monument act. It is bigger and finer and 
 has more functions to perform in the national life than the ordinary 
 national monument and it should not go on and be developed under 
 the monument idea. As T have indicated, we want to present to the 
 committee from time to time three or four or five monuments that 
 ought to be elevated to a higher status and it may be that there are 
 some of our national parks — one anyway out in North Dakota — that 
 probably ought to be reduced to the monument status. 
 
 This monument in Maine is presented first because it is ready to be- 
 come a national park now. 
 
 Mr. Peters. Let me say in regard to this park that the word monu- 
 ment has no descriptive value in relation to this property. It can not 
 be known as a monument, and you can not get the people down there 
 to call it a monument : they call it a park now because it is a park. 
 
 Mr. Albright. As I have said, this is more than a monument, be- 
 cause it is of great scientific interest; it has bird life, animal life, and 
 geological formations and historical associations that are of national 
 importance. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. I think the Chairman showed good judgment in 
 asking you to make an explanation of the difference between a na- 
 tional park and a national monument, because we are going to handle 
 other monuments in the future, and we may be called on to reduce a 
 national park to the status of a national monument. 
 
 Mr. Albright. The difference is not altogether clear, because when 
 the National Park Service was created, under the act of August 25, 
 1916 (39 Stat, 535), they were all treated together. As "national 
 parks, national monuments and the Hot Springs Reservation in 
 Arkansas," and the authority to administer each and every monu- 
 ment, reservation and park in the same manner was given to this 
 new bureau. Therefore, so far as the National Park Service act is 
 concerned, there is no distinction except in the nomenclature. 
 
 Mr. Dorr. Is not the Arizona Grand Canyon a national monu- 
 ment i 
 
 Mr. Albright, Yes, it is a national monument, although the Sen- 
 ate passed a bill the other day making it a national park. That park 
 project has been pending in Congress since 1885. 
 
 Mr. Mays. You are more likely to get the necessary funds with 
 which to maintain a park than you are to secure funds for a main- 
 tenance of a monument, are you not? 
 
 Mr. Albright. Oh, yes; there is no question about that. We have 
 22 monuments under our jurisdiction, and we can not expect the 
 Committee on Appropriations to enter upon the policy of making 
 liberal appropriations for all of these monuments. 
 
 Mr. Tillmax. The parks and monuments have many things in 
 common, but there is not likely to be the same expenditure of money 
 on the national monuments as on the national parks. The national 
 monuments have their natural attractions and natural wonders, and 
 the only object is to keep them in their natural state. 
 
 Mr. Albright. Yes; the object is to keep them in their natural 
 state, and it is farthest from our ambitions to ask for money to 
 largely develop those areas. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. Is there any game in this park ? 
 
22 MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 
 
 Mr. Dorr. We had an automobile stopped last November by a 
 moose appearing in the road, and that moose declined to get out of 
 the road. It was in the evening. 
 
 Mr. McClinTic. Did he belong there or had he escaped from Some 
 show? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. No; the moose evidently came from the mainland; the 
 water across is quite shallow. A couple of moose got into the garden 
 of one of my friends within three or four years and they are quite 
 abundant in the region. The State protected its deer for a number 
 of years and then it removed the protection. They removed that 
 protection on a certain date in January and on that day men went 
 out with dogs, a number of men, and rounded up in a herd «very 
 deer to be found and killed them all. That is what happens if you 
 do not have potection. We have had no protection this year except 
 that one of my friends employed a couple of men to protect the deer 
 during the past winter. There should be some Government protec- 
 tion of the game there. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. Would you object to a provision being put in this 
 bill requiring the State to look after the protection of the game on 
 that island in cooperation with the Government? 
 
 Mr. Dorr. I think they would gladly do it, but it might be safer 
 to limit it to the park lands and those immediately adjoining it. 
 Mr. Peters could answer that better than I can. 
 
 Mr. Peters. I think that would bring about an undesirable com- 
 plication. I think there would be no trouble about getting the co- 
 operation of the State 
 
 Mr. Dorr (interposing). I am sure there would not be any trouble 
 as to that. 
 
 Mr. Peters (continuing). But to make a condition of that kind. 
 I fear, might lead to further complications, unless the committee has 
 some reason to offer why that should be done. 
 
 Mr. Mays. I think that would be unusual. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. As a matter of fact, if the Government takes this 
 over and pays money for it, I presume that this wild game would be 
 protected the same as it is in the Yellowstone Park and the other 
 parks. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. I was only referring to that island. You only 
 have a small tract on that island and if you turned them loose to 
 kill the game on the balance of the island your protection in the park 
 would not be worth anything, but if the State protected the game on 
 that island, I am sure the State would quickly extend its protecting 
 arm all through that island and that would give the needed protec- 
 tion. 
 
 Mr. Peters. I think they will, anyway, because the policy of the 
 State is very much in favor of the protection of its game. It spends 
 a very large amount of money through its fish and game commission 
 for the protection of the game of the State, because that is one of the 
 greatest assets of the State. They made a grave mistake in permit- 
 ting an open season on the island, which they have realized, and that 
 will never happen again, so that conditions will be perfectly satis- 
 factory, I am certain, and I would rather there would not be any 
 such condition placed in the bill. 
 
MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 23 
 
 Mr. McClintic. I have no desire to add any amendment to the 
 bill which would impede its passage in the House. 
 
 Mr. Albright. I think we could handle that as we do in the West- 
 ern States, where we have appeared before the legislatures and laid 
 our point of view before the proper committees. In almost every 
 case we have received the cooperation we asked for. 
 
 Mr. Peters. I would almost be willing to guarantee the committee 
 that we can get such legislation as would be satisfactory to this com- 
 mittee. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. Do you not think it would be a pretty good idea 
 for the Maine delegation, or those members who live in close prox- 
 imity to this park, to take this up with the Maine State Legislature 
 and ask that sufficient legislation be enacted to give protection to this 
 immediate section? 
 
 Mr. Peters. Yes, I do. This is in the district I represent and I 
 will undertake, with the cooperation of Mr. Dorr, who represents the 
 local section, to ask for legislation next winter which will cover the 
 situation entirely, and I have no question that it will be granted. 
 
 Mr. McClintic. I want to say that in the State of Oklahoma we 
 have a little game preserve, called the Wichita Game Preserve, and 
 when I was a member of the legislature, Senator Thomas and my- 
 self introduced a bill — he was a member of the Senate and I was a 
 member of the House — which provided for the protection of game 
 in every county adjacent to this park, and that is now the State law. 
 Consequently we have the finest herd of deer in the whole country in 
 that park and nobod}^ can kill the deer. 
 
 Mr. Peters. I can almost guarantee that it will be done in Maine. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. The fact that you have game in Maine at this time, 
 one of the oldest States of the Union, goes to show that the senti- 
 ment would be in favor of that. 
 
 Mr. Dorr. When this was created as a monument there was a 
 movement started in Bar Harbor, with which I had nothing to 
 do myself, to make the whole island into a bird sanctuary, and it 
 met with very active support. The women's clubs have interested 
 themselves in that question, and I think that if the monument be 
 made into a park that ultimately the whole island can be made into 
 a bird sanctuary. 
 
 Mr. Peters. There is no doubt about that. 
 
 Mr. McClixtic. The game on the island, especially the moose and 
 deer, ought to be protected, and no doubt just a little suggestion to 
 the State legislature will bring about the desired result. 
 
 Mr. Peters. The moose are protected, because there is a perpet- 
 ually closed season in the whole State. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. They outght not to be killed on the island during 
 any part of the year. 
 
 Mr. Peters. That is quite right. 
 
 Mr. Dorr. I want the whole island to become a game sanctuary. 
 
 Mr. Peters. I am very much obliged to you gentlemen for your at- 
 tention this morning, and especially on this day. I understand that 
 I have your permission to include in the record certain printed mat- 
 ter relating to the Mount Desert National Park project. 
 
24 MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 
 
 (Here follows this printed matter:) 
 Thereupon the subcommittee adjourned. 
 
 Offer to the Government. 
 
 May 3, 1916. 
 Hon. Franklin K. Lane, 
 
 Secretary of the Interior, 
 
 Washington, D. C. 
 Sir : On behalf of the Hancock County trustees of public reservations, State 
 of Maine, I have the honor to offer in free gift to the United States a unique 
 and noble tract of land upon our eastern seacoast, for the establishment of a 
 national monument. 
 
 The tract offered is rich in historic association, in scientific interest, and in 
 landscape beauty. And it contains within itself the only heights that immedi- 
 ately front the open sea with mountainous character upon our eastern coast. 
 It contains also, owing to past glacial action and its own variously resistant 
 rocky structure, an extraordinary variety of topographic feature which unites 
 with the climate caused by the surrounding sea to fit it beyond any other 
 single locality in the East for the shelter, growth, and permanent preservation 
 of a wide range of life, both plant and animal. 
 
 It forms a striking and instructive geologic record. And it constitutes the 
 dominant and characteristic portion of the first land, Moun Desert Island, to be 
 visited, described, and named by Champlain when sailing under De Monts's 
 orders in exploration of the New England coast. 
 
 The papers I inclose herewith explain in detail the thought and purpose of 
 the offered gift, with the reasons which have led us to the conviction of its ex- 
 ceptional public value and worthiness to be accepted. 
 I remain, sir, with respect, 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 George Btjcknam Dorr. 
 
 First Public Announcement of the Plan to Form a National Park Upon 
 
 Mount Desert Island. 
 
 [Taken from the Eighteenth Annual Report of the American Scenic and Historic Preser- 
 vation Society, New York, 1913.] 
 
 The society has been consulted recently with regard to the general purpose 
 of summer residents upon the coast of Maine to offer the Federal Government 
 in the near future a superb tract of land for a national park on the beautiful 
 island of Mount Desert, where the grand coast scenery of the region culmi- 
 nates and whose early discovery and occupation by the French confer on it ex- 
 ceptional human interest. 
 
 Mount Desert Island, which is about 13 miles wide by 16 long, is a boldly 
 uplifted mass of ancient rock lying off the central part of the Maine coast, in 
 latitude 40° 20' north and longitude 6S° 20' west. It is inclosed on either side 
 by noble bays and diversified remarkably by mountains, lakes, and inlets of 
 the sea, the highest elevation on it. Green Mountain, being 1,527 feet hi.eh. It 
 is famous as a summer resort. ■ 
 
 A few years ago a group of summer residents there incorporated themselves 
 under the title of the Hancock County trustees of public reservations, with the 
 object of acquiring and holding for the public lands important to it on Mount 
 Desert Island and in the region round about it. President Emeritus Charles 
 W. Eliot, of Harvard University, became president of the association and Mr. 
 George B. Dorr, of Boston, vice president and executive officer ; while such 
 men as Bishop William Lawrence, of Massachusetts, Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, of 
 Philadelphia, and Messrs. John S. Kennedy, David B. Ogden, Henry Lane Eno, 
 and Dr. Robert Abbe, of New York City, have taken active interest in the 
 association's work. 
 
 The association now holds between 5,000 and 6,000 acres upon the island in 
 one continuous reservation, including its highest mountain peaks and the 
 greater portion of the watershed of the lakes between them from which the 
 water supplies of its residential parts are chiefly drawn. The area also in- 
 cludes much forest land, with deep valleys which offer admirable shelter for 
 wild life, open marshes and pools suitable for wading and aquatic birds, streams 
 
MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 25 
 
 on which beavers formerly built their dams and which would make fit homes 
 for them again, and the best opportunity along the whole Maine coast for 
 preserving and exhibiting the native flora. The latter comprises, besides 
 characteristic trees and shrubs, interest '.ng plants and wild flowers which — 
 like the Mayflower and the wild orchids of the region — are liable to be ex- 
 terminated as the coast becomes more thickly settled unless protected in such 
 shelters. 
 
 As opportunity to do so at reasonable cost shall offer, the association 'hopes 
 to increase its ownership till it includes the whole range at Champlain's 
 " Monts deserts." from 12 to 15 miles in length, which extends across the 
 island — offering magnificient views of sea and land — together with the lakes 
 and marshes and the one deep fiord on out Atlantic coast which lie among them. 
 The completion of this purpose will create a wild park of remarkable beauty, 
 unique character and great variety of landscape feature, and one that will 
 afford exceptional opportunity for wild-life protection. 
 
 To assure the permanence of such a park and place it under a control whose 
 ability to take full advantage of the opportunities it offers and whose sole 
 interest in the public good shall be established on the surest footing, it is 
 proposed to convey it to the Federal Government as a gift to the Nation. From 
 the national point of view, this is an opportunity of unusual advantage. The 
 mountain range on the island is oof only exceedingly bold but its mountains are 
 the only ones south of Labrador on the Atlantic coast, with the exception of a 
 few lower peaks — such as the Gouldsboro and Camden Hills — in its vicinity. 
 From the higher summits of these mountains one looks out over forty or more 
 miles of sea to the horizon, while the ancient granite masses which compose 
 them have been shaped by ice-sheet grinding into forms of striking pictur- 
 esqueness. 
 
 In view of the unique landscape character and exceptional beauty of the tract 
 intended ; in view of the fact that no other opportunity for the establishment 
 of a national park upon our north Atlantic coast is ever likely to present itself, 
 or can so favorably ; and in view of its accessibility by land and sea from the 
 great eastern centers of population and the rapidity with which these centers 
 are growing and the wild regions of the country losing wildness, it can scarce 
 be doubted that the Government will avail itself of the generosity of the donors 
 and accept the splendid gift when it is offered. 
 
 Sieub de Monts National Monument. 
 
 GEORGE r.HCKNAM DORR. 
 
 This area, not a purchase by tbe Government but a gift from citizens, in- 
 cludes the mountainous and finest landscape portion of Mount Desert Island 
 on the coast of Maine, whose crowning glory in a resort and scenic sense mat 
 island is and has been for the last half century. 
 
 Technically termed a monument because created by the President and Sec- 
 retary of the Interior under the authority given them by the so-called monu- 
 ments act of 1906 and because of its historic interest, it is by nature, beauty, 
 and resort importance a time national park in every popular sense and destined 
 when developed to become one of the most widely visited and recreationally 
 useful park areas on the continent. 
 
 Beautiful as it is in other ways, this is its unique possession, that it is the 
 only tract of national-park land in the country offering to its visitors the re- 
 freshment, the ever-varying interest and beauty and the limitless expanses of 
 the ocean — in contrast to the magnificent domains of mountain lands, western 
 or eastern, that its -companion parks may offer. 
 
 Physically, the Sieur de Monts National Monument is a bold range of sea- 
 ward-facing granite bills, extraordinarily mountainous in character and won- 
 derful in the variety, the interest and beauty of the climbs they offer, one 
 only, but the highest', rising from the border of the ocean over 1,500 feet, offers 
 opportunity for road construction. When, sooner or later, such a road— one 
 by no means difficult to build— shall be constructed, restoring along a better 
 route tbe old buckboard road which formerly let up to a hotel upon the summit, 
 
26 MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 
 
 it will become at once, with modern motor travel, one of the great scenic fea- 
 tures of the Continent. As one ascends, superb views of land diversified by 
 lakes and bays and stretching far away to distant hills, disclose themselves 
 successively, and when one reaches the summit, the magnificent ocean view 
 that opens suddenly before one is a sight few places in the world can parallel. 
 The vastness of the ocean seen from such a height, its beauty both in calm 
 and storm, and its appeal to the imagination yield nothing even to the boldest 
 mountain landscape, while the presence of that cool northern sea, surging back 
 and forth and deeply penetrating the land with its great tidal flood, gives the 
 air a stimulating and refreshing quality comparable only to that found else- 
 where upon alpine heights. And as on alpine heights the herbaceous plants 
 that shelter their life beneath the ground in winter bloom with brilliancy and 
 flourish with a vigor rarely found elsewhere, so here the ocean presence and 
 long northern days of summer sun combine with the keen air to make the gar- 
 dens of the Island famous and the national parklands singularly fitted to serve 
 as a magnificent wild garden and plant sanctuary, at once preserving and exhib- 
 iting the native plants and wild flowers of the Acadian region which the mon- 
 ument so strikingly represents. 
 
 This native quality of the place is noted, curiously, in Gov. Winthrop's 
 Journal, when he came sailing by one early summer day in 1630 on his way 
 to Salem, bringing its charter to the Massachusetts colony whose governor he 
 was to be. and found " fair sunshine weather and so pleasant a sweet air as 
 did much refresh us; and there came a smell from off the shore like the smell 
 of a garden." 
 
 As a bird sanctuary, too. these parklands, placed as they are directly on the 
 great natural migration route of the Atlantic shore and widely various in 
 favorable character, need proper guardianship only to become a singularly 
 useful instrument in bird life conservation, while adding not a little through 
 the presence of the birds to their own interest and charm. 
 
 Geologically, the monument, with its adjacent coastal rocks and headlands, 
 forms a wonderful exhibit. Essentially, it is a bold and rugged group of 
 granite peaks, immensely old though far less ancient than the primeval sea-laid 
 rocks — hard, bent and twisted sands and clays — up through which they are 
 thrust. These peaks, geologists say, united into a single mass, once bore an 
 alpine height upon their shoulders which looked across wide valley lands to- 
 ward a distant sea. Time beyond count laid bare the mountain base, which the 
 slow southward grinding of the ice-sheet later trenched into dozen deeply 
 isolated peaks. Between them, hollows, deeper than the present level of the 
 sea in places, now contain a number of beautiful fresh-water lakes and one 
 magnificent fjord which nearly cuts the island into two. Finally, owing to 
 a general subsidence along the coast, the sea swept inland, flooding round the 
 ice-eroded remnant of the ancient mountain to form the largest rock-built 
 island on the Atlantic shore from the St. Lawrence southward, and its highest 
 elevation. 
 
 In places on the island's southern shore, the granite comes down to the 
 ocean front, forming the boldest headlands and thrusting out to meet the sea's 
 attack the grandest storm swept rocks upon our coast ; in other places, the 
 inclosing sedimentary rocks, hardened by the enormous heat and pressure 
 caused by the granitic upburst, oppose the ocean with dark, furrowed cliffs of 
 different character but equally magnificent, in shine or storm. 
 
 The whole Acadian region of eastern Maine, which the Sieur de Monts 
 National Monument represents with rare completeness in a single tract of con- 
 centrated interest, is rich in delightful features, in forests, lakes and streams, 
 and the wild life of every kind — plant, animal and fish — that haunts them. 
 Its value as a vast recreative area for the whole nation to the eastward of the 
 Rockies is even yet but little realized, although from the first opening of the 
 fishing season in the spring to the close of hunting in the fall an immense tide 
 of recreative travel streams continually through it. 
 
 The new National Monument, and future Park as it will, doubtless be, lies — 
 with all the added beauty of the ocean and interest of historic association- 
 close beside the main entrance to this region, where the Penobscot mingles its 
 fresh water with the sea. From the Monument, delightful trips by train, by 
 boat, by motor, may be made on every side — up and down the coast ; to New 
 Brunswick, Cape Breton and Nova Scotia ; or to the magnificent lake and 
 forest regions of the interior. And to it, one may come, as to no other national 
 park area on the continent, by boat as well as train or motor 
 
MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 27 
 
 The chapter of world history which the Sieur de Monts National Monument 
 commemorates, that of the first founding of Acadia, in 1604 — half a genera- 
 tion before the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers on the Massachusetts shore, 
 and of the long French occupation of the Acadian region, extending from the 
 Kennebec to Cape Breton, which followed it, is full of human interest as 
 told in the pages of Champlain and Lescarbot in quaint old French, and by 
 numerous later writers. 
 
 De Monts, a Huguenot of noble family in southwestern France, came out 
 commissioned by Henry IV — Henry of Navarre — to occupy for France, and 
 colonize. " the lands and territory called Acadia," extending, as it was then 
 defined, from the fortieth to the forty-sixth degrees of latitude — those approxi- 
 mately of Philadelphia and Montreal to-day ; to establish friendly trade rela- 
 tions with its natives ; to explore its coasts and rivers ; to govern it, and rep- 
 resent in it and on its seas the person of the King; and to bring its people, 
 " barbarous and without faith in God," into knowledge and practice of the 
 Christian religion. 
 
 It was a great adventure, largely conceived and bravely carried out. De 
 Monts planted the fleur-de-lis on the American shore, and for more than a cen- 
 tury and a half it stayed there. That it is not floating there to-day is due to 
 forces greater than national, to the growth of the democratic spirit and demo- 
 cratic principles of government in the English colonies, which gave them an in- 
 herent power that mounted like a rising tide till it possessed and overflowed 
 their continent, and is to-day profoundly influencing the world. 
 
 ******* 
 
 Sailing from De Monts' first colony at the mouth of the St. Croix — our pres- 
 ent national boundary — to explore the westward coast, Champlain made his first 
 landing within this country's limits on Mount Desert Island, close to Bar Har- 
 bor probably, on its seaward side — wherever he first found safe beaching or 
 good mooring for his damaged boat, stove on a hidden rock, he says, on enter- 
 ing Frenchmans Bay. 
 
 Champlain describes the mountains of the monument as he saw them then, 
 with deep, dividing gorges and bare rocky summits, and named the island from 
 them, giving it, in a French form, the name which it still bears, the " Isle des 
 Monts Deserts." 
 
 The Coast of Maine. 
 
 By Charles Eliot. 
 
 From Cape Cod, Massachusetts, to Cape Sable, Nova Scotia, the broad en- 
 trance of the Gulf of Maine is 200 miles wide, and it is 100 miles across from 
 each of these capes to the corresponding end of the Maine coast at Kittery and 
 Quoddy. Thus, Maine squarely faces the gulfs wide seaward opening, while 
 to the east and west, beyond her bounds, stretch its two great offshoots, the 
 Bays of Fundy and of Massachusetts. The latter and lesser bay presents a 
 south shore, built mostly of sands and gravels, in bluffs and beaches, and a 
 north shore of bold and 'enduring rocks — both already overgrown with seaside 
 hotels and cottages. The Bay of Fundy, on the other hand, is little resorted 
 to as yet for pleasure ; its shores in many parts are grandly high and bold, but 
 its waters are moved by such rushing tides and its coasts are so frequently 
 wrapped in fog that it will doubtles long remain a comparatively unfrequented 
 
 Along the coast of Maine scenery and climate change from the Massachusetts 
 to the Fundy type. At Boston the average temperature of July is 70° ; at 
 Eastport it is 61°. No such coolness is to be found along the Atlantic coast 
 from Cape Cod southward, and this summer freshness of the air must always be 
 an irresistible attraction to many thousand dwellers in hot cities. Again, in con- 
 trast with the low beaches farther south, the scenery of the Maine coast is 
 exceedingly interesting and refreshing. The mere map of it is most attrac- 
 tive. From the Piscataqua River, a deep estuary whose swift tides flow 
 through an archipelago of rocks and lesser islands, to Cape Elizabeth, a broad 
 wedge of rock pushed out to sea as though to mark the entrance to Portland 
 Harbor, the coast is already rich in varied scenery; but there another type, 
 wilder, more intricate and picturesque, begins. Casco Bay, with its many 
 branches running inland and its seaward-stretching peninsulas and islands, is 
 
28 • MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 
 
 the first of a succession of bays, thoroughfares, and reaches which line the coast 
 almost unceasingly to Quoddy. The mainland becomes lost behind a maze of 
 rock-bound islands; the salt water penetrates by deep and narrow channels into 
 the very woods, ebbs and How.- in and out of hundreds of lonely, unfrequented 
 harbors, discovers countless hidden nooks and coves. Sand beaches become 
 rare, and great and small "sea walls" of rounded stones or pebbles take their 
 place. Except at Mount Desert, great cliffs occur, but seldom until Grand 
 .Ma nan is readied, while mountains come down only to the open sea at Mount 
 Desert ; but the variety of lesser topographic forms is great. 
 
 The general aspect of the coast is wild and untamable, an effect due 
 partly to its own rocky character and storm-swept ledges, but yet more 
 to the changed character of the coastal vegetation. Beyond Cape Eliza- 
 beth capes and islands are wooded, if at all. with the dark, stiff cresting of 
 spruce and fir, interspersed perhaps with pine and fringed by birch and 
 mountain ash. One by one familiar species disappear as the coast is traversed 
 eastward, and northern forms replace them. The red pine first appears on 
 Massachusetts Bay, the gray pine at Mount Desert; the Arbor-vitae is first 
 met with near Kennebec; the balsam fir and the black and white spruces 
 show themselves nowhere to the south of Cape Ann, nor do they abound until 
 Cape Elizabeth is passed. It is these somber coniferous woods crowding to 
 the water's edge along the rugged shore which give the traveler his strong 
 impression of a wild subarctic land where strange Indian names— Pemaquid, 
 Megunticook, Eggemoggin, or Schoodic — are altogether fitting. 
 
 The human story of the coast of Maine is almost as picturesque and varied 
 as its secenery. The coast was first explored by Samuel de Champlain, whose 
 narative of his adventure is still delightful reading. Fruitless attempts at 
 settlement followed, led by French knights at St. Croix, French Jesuits at 
 Mount Desert, and Elnglish cavaliers at Sagadahock ; all of them years in 
 advance of the English colony at New Plymouth. Then followed a long period 
 of fishing and fur trading, during which Maine belonged to neither New France 
 nor New England. Rival Frenchmen fought and besieged each other in truly 
 feudal fashion at Penobscot and St. John. The numerous French names ou 
 the eastern coast bear witness still to the long French occupation there; as, for 
 instance. Grand and Petit Manan, Bois Bubert, Monts Deserts and Isle au 
 Hault, and Burnt Coat — English apparently, but really a mistranslation of 
 the French, Cote Brule. 
 
 No Englishmen settled east of the Penobscot until after the capture of 
 Quebec; when they did, more fighting followed in the wars of the Revo- 
 lution and of 1812. The settlers fished and hunted, cut hay on the salt marshes, 
 and timber in the great woods; then, in later times, took to shipbuilding. 
 These, the occupations of a wild and timbered coast, still form its business 
 in great part. The fisheries are an abiding resource and fleets of more than 
 two hundred graceful vessels may be often seen in port together, waiting the 
 end of a storm. Hunting is carried on at certain seasons in the eastern 
 counties, where deer are numerous, and innumerable inland lakes and streams 
 are full of trout. The large pines and spruces of the shore woods have long 
 since been cut, but Bangor still sends down the Penobscot a fleet of lumber 
 schooners, loaded from the interior, every time the wind blows from the north. 
 
 It was in the early sixties that what may be called the discovery of tne 
 picturesqueness, the wild beauty and refreshing character of the Maine coast took 
 place. Then, through the resort to it of a few well-known landscape painters, 
 the poor hamlet of Bar Harbor leaped into sudden fame and it became evi- 
 dent that the whole coast had an important, destiny before it as a resort and 
 summer home. Now. summer hotels are scattered all along its shores to 
 Frenchmans Bay, and colonies of summer villas already occupy many of the 
 more accessible capes and islands. 
 
 The spectacle of thousands upon thousands of people spending annually 
 several weeks or months of summer in healthful life by the seashore Is 
 very pleasant, but there is danger lest this human flood so overflow and 
 occupy the limited stretch of coast which it invades as to rob it of that 
 flavor of wildness which hitherto has constituted its most refreshing charm. 
 Yet it is not Hie tide of life itself, abundant though it be, which can work 
 the scene such harm. A surf-beaten headland may be crowned by a light- 
 house tower without losing its dignity and impressiveness ; a lonely fiord 
 shut in by dark woods, where the fog lingers in wreaths as it comes and 
 goes, still may make its strong imaginative appeal when fishermen build 
 their huts upon its shore and ply their trade. But the inescapable presence 
 
MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 29 
 
 of a life, an architecture and a landscape architecture alien to the spirit of 
 the place may take from it an inspirational and recreative value for work- 
 wearied men no economic terms can measure. 
 
 The United States have but this one short stretch of Atlantic seacoast 
 where a pleasant summer climate and real picturesqueness of scenery are 
 to be found together; can nothing be done to preserve for the use and 
 enjoyment of the great body of the people in the centuries to come some 
 hue parts at least of this seaside wilderness of Maine? 
 
 The Geology of Mount Deseet. 
 
 Condensed from a Government report by Nathaniel S. Shaler and later study 
 
 by William Morris Davis. 
 
 [Statement approved by the U. S. Geological Survey.] 
 
 The mountains of the Mount Desert Range are by far the highest of the 
 many mountainous hills that rise above the rolling lowland of southern and 
 southeastern Maine. Long ago this lowland, far more extensive seaward then, 
 was tilted toward the south until its southern portion passed beneath the 
 ocean, to form the platform of the Gulf of .Maine, while its northern portion 
 gradually ascended inland till it finally took on in the interior the character of 
 a plateau. The tilted lowland, in the portion that remained above the ocean 
 level, became scored by numerous stream-cut valleys, following down its gentle 
 slope toward the sea ; since these were excavated the coastal region has again 
 been slightly lowered, carrying the whole shore line farther inland, changing 
 many a land valley into a long sea arm and isolating many a hilltop as an 
 outlying island. Associated with this later change of level there came a period 
 of arctic climate which covered the region with a deep sheet of ice such as 
 that which holds possession now of Greenland — then less arctic than New Eng- 
 land possibly. The slow southward and seaward flow of this vast mass of 
 frozen water stripped from the land its ancient soil, wore down the hills, 
 deepened the valleys, and pushed the accumulated debris before it to form the 
 present fishing banks upon the ancient coastal plain, the Cape Cod sands, and 
 the deep gravels of Long Island, besides blocking on its way the course of in- 
 numerable streams and damming them to create the myriad lakes and meadow- 
 lands which make Maine famous now is one of the greatest inland fishing 
 regions in the world. 
 
 The lowland from which the mountainous bills of Maine rise up is not, like 
 the coastal lowlands to the southward of Cape Cod, a recently emerged sea bot- 
 tom, still for the most part as smooth as when the ocean covered it. It is low 
 in spite of having been strongly uplifted long ago ; it is low because the ancient 
 alpine heights that occupied it once have been worn down by age-long de- 
 nudation and have slowly wasted away under the ceaseless attack of the at- 
 mosphere. 
 
 The boldly uplifted range of Mount Desert is one of the most stubborn sur- 
 vivors of that ancient highland, and the beauty of the island as seen from the 
 sea, unparalleled along our whole Atlantic coast, is due to its persistent reten- 
 tion of some portion of the height which the whole region once had but which 
 nearly every other part of it has lost. 
 
 Although the noble granitic rocks that form this range rest quiet and cold 
 in their age to-day, they were once hot and energetic, pressing their way up- 
 ward, as a vast molten mass, toward — and overflowing possibly — the ancient 
 surface of the land. The massive granite stretches east and west across the 
 island, inclosed wherever the attack of ice or sea has failed to lay it bare by 
 rocks of a wholly different origin and character. At first these other rocks 
 are seen as isolated fragments included in the granite ; the fragments then be- 
 come more frequent until solid rock of their own type, strangely twisted and 
 contorted, begins to take the granite's place, as in the wonderful displays at 
 Great Head and Hunters Beach Head; further on, the granite is only seen 
 penetrating these other rocks in long, narrow crevices, as on Sutton Island; at 
 last it ceases entirely, and the rocky lloor, wherever it can be observed, is wholly 
 formed by rocks like those first seen as fragments caught and frozen in the cool- 
 ing granite. Near the margin of its area, again, the granite is finer textured 
 
30 MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 
 
 than where erosion has laid bare its ancient depths, as in the mountain gorges ; 
 for it is the way of igneous, or fire-formed, rocks when crystallizing from a mol- 
 ten state to develop smaller crystals and finer texture near their boundaries, 
 where the cooling is more rapid. 
 
 This fine texture of the margin of the granite, the inclusion of angular anil 
 freshly broken fragments of the regional rocks within its borders, and the 
 penetration of the regional rocks themselves by narrowing granitic arms or 
 dikes, clearly show that the granite is the later comer, and that it came molten, 
 breaking its way with tremendous power into the ancient rocky crust under 
 some vast, compelling pressure; at last, when the impelling forces were satis- 
 fied, it came to a halt and slowly froze into a rigid mass, holding in its 
 grasp innumerable fragments gathered from the rent and fractured walls, 
 whose cracks it fills. 
 
 This granitic outburst is the greatest even) in The geological history of 
 Mount Desert. It was of colossal magnitude. The energy of its intrusion 
 can not be conceived. Not that the intrusion was suddenly accomplished, for 
 no conjecture can be made as to the time it took, but that it was effected against 
 enormous resistances and involved the movement of gigantic masses. 
 
 The granite mass disclosed in these ancient monuments of the geologic past 
 is at least a dozen miles in length and four or five in breadth at widest, with 
 roots far wider spread beneath the level of the present surface. No one can 
 give a measure of the greater height to which it once ascended, and he would 
 be a daring geologist who would set a limit to the unsounded depths from 
 which it rose. The uprising may have required many historic ages : it may have 
 been relatively rapid: but that it was progressive, not instantaneous, is clearly 
 to be seen upon examination of the granite margins. 
 
 The bare ledges and cliffs of the southeastern coast especially afford won- 
 derfully clear illustrations of the molten stone's intrusive processes. Here we 
 may follow the upward-driven granite forcing its way into narrowing cracks 
 among the older rocks; there great fragments of the older rocks have been 
 caught up in it and partly melted by its heat perhaps. Sometimes a block of 
 the ancient regional stone may be seen divided by granite-filled fissures whose 
 fractured walls can still lie matched with certainty, striking instances of 
 which are shown on the eastern side in the narrows of the Somes Sound fiord. 
 The now rigid granite then yielded so perfectly under the heat and tremendous 
 pressures acting on it as to penetrate the narrowest cracks and crevices, fol- 
 lowing them down to hairlike fineness. Nowhere in the world, indeed, may the 
 geologist or traveler find better or more impressive illustration of the manifold 
 processes of deep-seated intrusion than on the wave-swept ledges of the island's 
 southern coast between Somes Sound and Frenchmans Rav. 
 
 The Woods of Mount Desert 
 
 By Edward L. Hand, Secretary of the New England Botanical S'»-iety and 
 author of " The Flora of Mount Desert-" 
 
 Mount Desert Island has an area of over 100 square miles. The ocean 
 surges against it on the south; broad bays inclose it on the east and west : and 
 at its northernmost extremity a narrow passage only separates it from the 
 mainland. Its outline is very irregular, like that of the Maine coast in general, 
 with harbors and indentations everywhere. The largest of these. Somes Sound. 
 a long, deep fiord running far into the land between mountainous shores, nearly 
 bisects the island. There are some 13 mountains — bare rocky summits varying 
 in height up to over 1,500 feet and lying in a great belt from east to west ; 
 between them dee]), blue lakes are sunk in rocky beds. To the north, the north- 
 west, and the southeast tin 1 surface — of a different geologic structure—is rela- 
 tively fiat, with lower and more undulating hills and broad stretches of 
 meadowland and marsh. On the southeast and east the mountains approach 
 closely to the shore, ending in a coast of precipitous cliffs and bold, rocky 
 headlands that has long been famous. Nowhere else on the Atlantic coast is 
 there such a wonderful combination of natural scenery as this island possesses ; 
 nowhere is there another spot where shore and mountain are so grandly 
 blended. For years it has been renowned as the crowning glory of the beauti- 
 ful, countless-harbored coast of Maine. 
 
MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 31 
 
 The forests of Mount Desert Island were once full of wealth, and full of 
 wealth they still would he if the lumbermen had not done their work so well. 
 High up on the mountain sides, through the mountain gorges, along the borders 
 of the lakes and streams, everywhere to the water's edge, the great trees grow- 
 ing on the thin but rich wood soil were taken out, as one may plainly see by 
 their huge rotting stumps to-day. The importance of preserving the woods 
 which still remain no lover of Nature can question. They are infinitely precious 
 as a part of the wild scenery of the place and for their wonderful attraction 
 to the city-wearied man or woman in search of a summer home and resting 
 place. 
 
 What the island was in the early days of its primeval beauty, when Cham- 
 plain sailed along its shore and for a century after, lies far beyond the pos- 
 sibility of conjecture now. Yet some idea of what these woods once were may 
 •<till be gained from a few favored spots where portions of the ancient forest 
 yet remain, and much of their original beauty may be brought back if steps 
 are taken to preserve them now and protect from consuming forest fires the 
 all-important humus in their soil. 
 
 Mor.xT Desekt Island as a Plant Sanctuary. 
 
 By M. L. Fernald, Professor of Botany at Harvard University, Curator of the 
 Gray Herbarium, Former President New England Botanical Society. 
 
 < )ne of the commonest sights in the wilder districts of our once densely tim- 
 bered eastern States is vast stretches of burned and wasted land, desolate and 
 unproductive. 
 
 Now, nearly all the native plants which originally inhabited these desolated 
 areas have a peculiarly modified root-structure which renders it impossible for 
 them to grow in any soil other than the moist and spongelike forest humus, to 
 life in which their whole development has been shaped for ages past. 
 
 The immediate effect, then, of the removal of the forest and burning over of 
 its leafy floor is the complete annihilation of countless lesser plants, wild 
 flowers, and ferns in hundreds of beautiful and interesting species which give 
 the primeval forest of the region its great natural charm. 
 
 The evil does not stop, however, with the destruction of the native woods and 
 wild flowers and the gradually accumulated wealth of woodland soil. Nature's 
 anciently established equilibrium is disturbed at its foundation, and the native 
 insects, associated from the beginning with the native flowering plants and 
 fearely hurtful to the farmer, perish largely with the vegetation and the soil 
 that they have lived and bred upon, leaving the field clear for the invasion of 
 destructive foreign species. 
 
 The birds, in turn, who feed upon the native insects and control the balance 
 of insect increase, no longer find their former food supply or shelter, and either 
 vanish from the wasted region or continue in diminished numbers. 
 
 Much of the land thus wrecked by axe and fire in the well-watered eastern 
 portion of our country must ultimately be reclothed with forest as its best 
 economic use, and none can be so well adapted to it as that which nature 
 clothed it with originally, rich alike in beauty and in valuable species. But it 
 will be long before such land again develops the humus covering the native 
 forest flora and its associated life require, and unless prompt measures are 
 taken to conserve them till it does, the task of resettling future forests with the 
 rich, indigenoiis life that is the region's own will have become impossible. 
 
 It has, therefore, long seemed to the writer that the only way in which to 
 conserve for the enjoyment and study of future generations any portions of our 
 country which by good fortune still remain in their natural condition is the 
 reservation of appropriate tracts, such as may properly be set aside, with the 
 explicit stipulation that they be left essentially in their natural state. 
 
 This brings me to the crucial point : Where is the best spot, if only a single 
 spot can be thus preserved, for the perfection of this ideal? A detailed know- 
 ledge of the geography, the flora, and to some extent the soil conditions of east- 
 ern North America, acquired through twenty-five years of active exploration in 
 New England, the Maritime Provinces, Quebec, Newfoundland, and Labrador, 
 naturally brings several regions to mind ; but as a single area within the pos- 
 sible reach of this hope, the Island of Mount Desert, with its adjacent islets and 
 headlands, stands out as offering the greatest natural diversity. 
 
32 MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 
 
 That comes obviously from the fact that Mount Desert is the highest land on 
 the Atlantic coast of North America south of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, its 
 boldly sculptured hills, which rise directly from the water's edge, attaining 
 altitudes of almost montane character. 
 
 The exposed headlands and bogs of the Mount Desert region support be- 
 tween two and three hundred species of plants which are typical of the arctic, 
 subarctic, and Hudsonian regions of America, and which on the eastern coast 
 of New England or the alpine summits of the AVhite Mountains reach their 
 actual or approximate southern limits — such plants, for instance, as the Black 
 Crowberry, Empetrwn nigrum; the Baked-apple Berry, Rubus Chamaemorus ; 
 the Creeping Juniper, Jwwpems liorizoiitalis ; the Greenland Sandwort, Are- 
 nariu groenlandica ; the Rose-root, Sedum rosewm,; and the Banksian Pine, 
 Pinus Bwnksiana. 
 
 But the flora of the Mount Desert region is not by any means entirely arctic 
 or subarctic. There we find essentially all the common plants of the Canadian 
 zone, and mingling with them in sheltered nooks and meadows or on warm 
 slopes, many scores of plants which reach their extreme northern or north- 
 eastern limit on Mount Desert or the immediate coast — such plants as the 
 Pitch Pine, Pinus rigida; the Bear Oak, Quercus ilicifolki; the Sweet Pepper- 
 bush, Clethra alnifolia; the Swamp Loosestrife, Decodon verticillatus; the 
 Meadow Beauty, Rhexia virgmica; and the Maple-leaved Viburnum, Viburnum 
 acerifolium. 
 
 This extraordinary accumulation within one small area of the typical 
 plants of the arctic realm, of the Canadian zone, and in many cases of the 
 southern coastal plain, can not be duplicated at any point known to the writer. 
 
 In its rock and soil composition Mount Desert offers a most attractive pos- 
 sibility. Much of the island consists of granite rocks, with the consequent acid 
 soils that these give rise to ; but the soils derived from some of the metamorpbic 
 series, slates and shales, are, judging from the native vegetation, of a basic or 
 even limy character, and many of the swamps are covered not with the heath 
 thickets of acid bogs but with the characteristic grasses and sedges of 
 sweet areas. 
 
 A number of the island plants, indeed, sometimes of rock habitats, sometimes 
 of swamps, suggest themselves at once as species which, in their wide range, 
 show a strong preference for sweet or limy habitats — the Shrubby Cinquefoil, 
 Potcntilla fruticom; the Showy Lady's Slipper, Cypripcdium hirsutum; the 
 Hemlock Parsley, CoMoselinum chinense, are instances. 
 
 These features alone are sufficient to indicate the remarkable possibilities 
 for the future if a tract like Mount Desert, unique upon our coast in physical 
 configuration as in beauty, can be preserved from the destruction of its natural 
 charm by the judicious guarding of what it now possesses and the reintroduc- 
 tion of what it has lost, or lost presumably, both plants and animals. 
 
 The fame of the island as the playground, habitual or occasional of a vast 
 and highly intelligent portion of our population, also renders it remarkably 
 appropriate for such a natural reservation; and should such a reservation be 
 established there, with due emphasis laid upon the maintenance or redevelop- 
 ment of natural and indigenous conditions, its influence upon the intelligent 
 people of America will be indeed far-reaching. For it is inconceivable that 
 lovers of nature could enjoy such an ideal area, with its unmolested wild 
 flowers, ferns, birds, and harmless animals, and with the full beauty of nature 
 everywhere displayed, without desiring and providing a similar blessing — ac- 
 cording to the varied opportunities that offer — for themselves, their children, 
 and their children's children in other portions of the continent. 
 
 Natural Bird Gardens on Mount Desert Island. 
 
 Edward Howe Forbush, Massachusetts State Ornithologist. Author of " Useful 
 Birds and Their Protection," a book placed by order of the Massachusetts 
 Legislature in every Public Library and High School in the State; Author of 
 " Game Birds and Wild Fowl." 
 
 Mount Desert Island, unique in being the only mountainous tract thrust 
 prominently out into the sea and rich in meadow lands and valleys, offers an 
 important landmark and admirable resting place for migratory birds of every 
 kind — birds of sea and shore, the useful insect-eating birds of cultivated lands 
 and gardens, the birds of inland waters, woods, and marshes. 
 
MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 33 
 
 The fauna and flora of the coast line at this point are largely of the Canadian 
 type and its birds are represented here with corresponding fullness. Never- 
 theless, a number of Hudsonian plants grow upon the island also and form 
 breeding places for certain birds characteristic of that northern area. This is 
 one of the very few points on the Atlantic coast of the United States where por- 
 tions of this far northern flora and fauna can be found at all, and it is the 
 southernmost of all. 
 
 Following the coast up from the west and south, a number of the birds of 
 the Alleghenian and transition zones reach the island also, and we thus find 
 at least four faimal areas represented in summer at this unique spot, while a 
 number of Arctic and other northern birds frequent the region in winter, at 
 which season the Alaskan eagle and the snowy owl appear. 
 
 Remarkable opportunities exist here, accordingly, for inducing birds of many 
 kinds to remain and nest upon the island, where they can be fostered, studied, 
 and protected. For the birds of farm and garden it offers conditions that 
 might readily be made ideal in certain sections. The forest cover, with its 
 under shrubs, provides admirable nesting places for all woodland species. For 
 the birds of inland and of tidal waters the place is singularly favorable, while 
 the vertical cliffs yet call to nest the raven and the eagle. 
 
 No northern situation was ever better fitted to grow a great variety of fruit- 
 ing plants for bird food. The remarkable horticultural qualities of the island 
 have long been recognized, and both wild and cultivated shrubs fruit there in 
 extraordinary profusion. In the broad heath which extends from the Bar Har- 
 bor region southward to the mountains ; in the wild gorge beyond with bottom 
 tarn which makes a natural highway for men and birds alike between the 
 island's northern and southern shores ; and around the old beaver-pool ground 
 out by the ice-sheet at the northern foot of Newport Mountain, there are won- 
 derful opportunities for natural bird gardens. 
 
 Here, in fertile soil washed down from the granite heights above and con- 
 stantly renewed, open spaces may readily be covered with the native food- 
 providing shrubs and trees, such as the alternate-leaved cornel, the wild service 
 berry or shad blow which is so beautiful in its springtime flowering, the red- 
 berried ilexes and richly fruiting thorns that bring such glowing color into the 
 northern fall, interspersed with thick bushes suitable for nesting. 
 
 Here, too, there are excellent opportunities for growing along the banks of 
 streams and ponds the seed-bearing herbaceous plants on which the marsh and 
 water birds subsist so largely, and an admirable chance for creating nesting 
 islands upon flooded marshlands that would form ideal breeding places for 
 meadow and aquatic birds. Water in every form is here abundant — in springs 
 and streams and open pools — while the deep, rich soils of the adjoining swamp 
 and swale already produces plants in plenty to entice the birds that haunt such 
 places, and little more is needed than to give these plants a chance to make 
 their best development. 
 
 And here, of all places, an admirable opportunity presents itself for the estab- 
 lishment of a bird-study station combined with bird protection, such as has 
 revolutionized abroad in recent years the methods formerly in use for the en- 
 couragement and protection of bird life. 
 
 ******* 
 
 Work along this line is greatly needed in America, and carried out at Mount 
 Desert, where so strong a tide of summer travels sets each year and where so 
 many people of influence and education, drawn from the whole country over, 
 spend their summers, such work would have exceptional value. 
 
 THE ACADIAN FOREST. 
 
 George B. Dorr. 
 
 The Acadian forest, using the word Acadian in its early French sense, stretched 
 dense and unbroken in de Monts' and Champlain's time over the wide coastal 
 territory now occupied by eastern Maine, by Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. 
 Plundered of its wealth and existing but in fragments now, no forest of a tem- 
 perate zone clothes with more vigorous growth the land it occupies, none has 
 greater charm or shelters a wild life more interesting. 
 
 This forest is typically represented, with singular completeness, upon Mount 
 Desert Island, where land and sea conditions meet and where a unique topog- 
 
 64235—18 3 
 
34 MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 
 
 raphy creates a correspondingly exceptional range of woodland opportunity. 
 To establish on the island, in connection with its now realized national park, a 
 permanent exhibit of this forest growing under original conditions has been 
 from the first a constant aim with those who sought the park's creation. 
 
 Such an exhibit has extraordinary value. A forest is far more than the mere 
 assemblage of its trees ; associated with them it contains, in regions of abundant 
 moisture such as the Acadian, a related life, both plant and animal, of infinite 
 variety and richness, whose home and sheltering habitat it makes. 
 
 ******* 
 
 The typical trees of the Acadian forest, those that give it its peculiar character, 
 are the northern evergreens, the cone-bearing pines and firs and spruces, the 
 hemlocks, and the arbor-vita'. It is of these one thinks in picturing -to oneself 
 the region. Maine itself is called the Pine Tree State ; its eastern coast, " The 
 Land of Pointed Firs." Longfellow sets the Acadian scene for us in Evangeline 
 with " This is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlocks," and 
 far out to sea in early, long-voyaged days the approaching sailor welcomed with 
 delight the pungent forest fragrance. 
 
 But mingled with these evergreens which give the forest its prevailing 
 character there are abundant other trees that lend their beauty to the scene. 
 Champlain describes the oaks growing as in a park upon one side of the 
 Penobscot River, when he ascended it in 1604, with pine forest on the other. 
 Deer and bears grow fat in autumn on the beechnuts in the wilder woods. 
 The two noblest birch trees in the world, the Canoe Birch, with its pure white 
 trunk, and the Yellow Birch, which in the North outstrips the oak itself in 
 size, find here their native home. Ash and maple are abundant. Poplars, 
 mingled with Paper Birches, turn into rivers of gold amongst the somber ever- 
 greens in fall, and nowhere is the autumn coloring more brilliant or of richer 
 contrast. 
 
 Underneath the taller trees, wherever an even partial break occurs, shrubs 
 and lesser trees spring up in wide variety ; thorns and wild plum trees, beauti- 
 ful in flower and fruit ; mountain ash and elder, with red, clustered berries ; 
 viburnums that would grace the finest pleasure ground ; dogwoods of northern 
 species ; sumach, beautiful at every leafy season ; blueberries in the open, rocky 
 places ; wild roses by the streams and roadsides ; blackberries with splendid 
 flowering stems ; witch hazel with its strange autumnal bloom ; rhodora, spread- 
 ing out great sheets of pink in spring upon the peaty marshlands, mingled with 
 the fragrant labrador tea ; brilliant-berried ilexes, sold in the cities at Christ- 
 mas time for holly ; and a host of others. 
 
 No inch of ground, in sun or shade, is left unoccupied. The very rocks are 
 lichen-clad and ferns mat over them in shady places. Trilliums and wild 
 orchids bloom in the forest depths, with white-flowered hobble-bushes ; clin- 
 tonias and the fragrant northern twin-flower that Linnaeus loved extend them- 
 selves as in wild garden beds upon the woodland floor. 
 
 Everywhere there is life, spreading mats of crowberry and the beautiful 
 coast juniper where they are deluged by the ocean spray in winter storms; 
 clothing wind-swept granite heights, wherever there is crack or cranny soil 
 can gather in, with partridge-berry, blueberry, and mountain cranberry ; pene- 
 trating the forest shade and profiting by the dense northern covering of leafy 
 humus that it finds there; and rich, wherever nature has not been disturbed, 
 in infinite variety — of mosses, fungus growths and ferns as well as flowering 
 plants. Few forests in the world, indeed, outside the rainy tropics, clothe 
 themselves with such abundant life, and there are none that bring one more 
 directly into touch with nature, its wildness and its charm. 
 
 SlEUR DE MONTS AND YOSEMITE. 
 THE PKOBLEM OF OUE NATIONAL PARKS. 
 
 By Stephen T. Mather, Director of the National Park Service. 
 
 [Reprinted from The Outlook, Apr. 28, 1917.1 
 
 The National Park Service now extends its activities across the continent 
 from coast to coast, and the complaint so often heard in the East that National 
 parks are chiefly beneficial for Western Americans no longer has force. The 
 
MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 35 
 
 creation, by Presidential proclamation hist summer, of the Sieur de Monts 
 
 National Monument establishes the service not only in the Far East, but upon 
 
 the Atlantic coast. Sieur de Monts has the further distinction of being the 
 
 first National playground reservation upon any seacoast. 
 
 It is true that, technically, Sieur de Monts is not a National park, but a 
 
 National monument. The distinction, however, will not be greatly apparent to 
 
 the average citizen. Technically, the principal difference is that the park is 
 
 created by act of Congress and the monument by proclamation of the President 
 ***** =:.- * 
 
 As a fact, the distinction is not observed in practice; a reservation so 
 great in area and scenic sublimity as the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, for 
 instance, still remains a National monument, while the Casa Grande Ruin, in 
 Arizona, valuable only ethnologically, is classed as a National park. Now 
 that organization is at last established, however, a National policy will quickly 
 crystallize. 
 
 Sieur de Monts has the distinction of possessing both historic interest and 
 very great natural beauty. It is situated on Mount Desert Island. Maine, 
 within one mile of Bar Harbor. It includes the ten mountains winch rise 
 directly back of that celebrated resort and approach the boundaries of South- 
 west Harbor. It contains in the hollows of its mountains several lakes of 
 exquisite grace. Its rocky, seadashed shore abounds in majestic headlands, 
 several of them famed in the early history of Acadia, from whose summits the 
 climber gazes upon sea vistas of remarkable beauty. It incloses a fiord of 
 loveliness. 
 
 This exquisite reservation is remarkable also for the diversity and beauty 
 of its forests and its floral luxuriance. Automobile roads lead to its bound- 
 aries, and footpaths penetrate its wilderness. Historical associations are 
 commemorated in titles, and tablets make them known to the wanderer. But 
 the visitor will not be bound by roads and paths. He will wander at will 
 through the forest wilderness, lunch by brooksides, and climb the mountain 
 summits. Sixty thousand people spend their summers in the many neighbor- 
 hood resorts. These resorts make Sieur de Monts accessible and enjoyable 
 to all. 
 
 But this sea-girt sylvan paradise has still another distinction. So far, the 
 acquisition of our National parks and monuments has cost the Nation nothing. 
 
 A few years ago William Kent, of San Francisco, purchased one of the last 
 remaining magnificent stands of first-growth redwoods and presented it to the 
 Nation. The Muir Woods National Monument, just across the bay from San 
 Francisco, will remain a perpetual monument to public spirit as well as to 
 nature's luxuriance. 
 
 Following Mr. Kent's precedent, a group of patriotic New Englanders, led 
 by George B. Dorr, of Boston and Bar Harbor, contributed their personal 
 holdings and acquired others by purchase for the creation of the Sieur de 
 Monts National Monument. Mr. Dorr made this the chief objective of a dozen 
 years. It was all private property. Owners had to be discovered, approached, 
 and persuaded to give or to sell. Funds had to be raised by private subscrip- 
 tion. It required great patience, persistence, and labor. But at last, less than 
 a year ago. the essential nucleus of 5,000 acres were acquired and presented 
 to the Nation. 
 
 But Mr. Dorr's work is not yet done. He has become the Government cus- 
 todian of the reservation at a salary insufficient to pay a week's board in the 
 humblest Bar Harbor hotel, and is putting his enerygy and resourceful influ- 
 ence into the development of the area for the public use. Sieur de Monts is 
 destined to become one of the rarest spots in America, as it is already one 
 of the most accessible. 
 
 So much for our beginning in the far East; but what of the far West, 
 where we have had National parks for many years? The Nation lies between 
 Sieur de Monts, on the Atlantic coast, and Yosemite, on the summit of the 
 Sierra Nevada. The former represents the aspirations of our young service, . 
 the latter an experiment toward the building of a model for the future develop- 
 ment of all our National parks. 
 
 But none will develop exactly like the Yosemite, because every National 
 park we possess is highly individualized. Each has its own separate condi- 
 tions and presents its own problems. Each must be treated in development ac- 
 cording to its personality. 
 
36 MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 
 
 Extracts from an Article on the Sieur de Monts National Monument, 
 Published in the Journal of the International Garden Club Issued 
 December, 1917. 
 
 The Sieur de Monts National Monument and the Wild Gardens of Acadia. 
 
 The Sieur de Monts National Monument is the first National Park, other than 
 military, to he established in the East. In its historic associations it is the 
 oldest in the country, antedating by some years the landing of the Pilgrim 
 Fathers on the Plymouth shore. It is also the only National Park bordering 
 upon the sea and exhibiting the beauty and the grandeur of the ocean. To all 
 of us who come from eastern stock, that frontage on the sea, that broad out- 
 look on the North Atlantic, has peculiar interest. That sea it was which brought 
 its founders to America, through danger and hardship, and gave their race the 
 spirit of independence and adventure from which our Nation sprang. This 
 park, also, rising from the ocean front, links itself as none other can, not 
 placed as if upon a harbored coast, with the Nation's greatest possession, the 
 navigable waters that border on its coast with the three-mile limit and which 
 in Maine, whose coast line is formed by the flooding of an old land surface 
 worn by streams, are fronted by 2,500 miles of picturesque and broken 
 shore from Portland to St. Croix. These National waters of the ocean 
 border, commercial use apart, constitute the greatest public recreative area on 
 the continent in the summer season, and the most democratic, for on them a 
 man, if he so choose, can, single handed, sail his own boat from port to port 
 along a many-harbored shore, anchoring where no private rights exist and 
 drawing from the sea such food as money can not buy except along the coast. 
 Between this recreative area with its boundless freedom and the National 
 park system stands, sole link as yet, the Sieur de Monts National Monument, 
 accessible by sea from every eastern port and fronting on it with a boldness 
 and a beauty unapproached on our Atlantic Coast and rarely equalled in the 
 world. 
 
 •P Sp -1* -■■ -1- 5{* •P 
 
 The park's historic aspect is but one, however ; another, to which special 
 importance was given in the park's foundation, is that of the value it may 
 be made to have in wild life conservation. In this the opportunity it offers is 
 extraordinary. The island's situation midway between sea and land, sharing 
 in both climates ; the boldness and variety of its mountain landscape, broken 
 by intervening lakes and meadows and deep wooded valleys; and its position 
 on a great coastal bird-migration route, with a widening continent beyond it 
 to the north, combine to make it a wonderful place for sheltering, preserving, 
 and exhibiting the native life — plant, bird, and animal — of the Acadian region, 
 rich in species and representing the whole great eastern section of the conti- 
 nent to the north of Portland. 
 
 To cooperate with the Government in this, a corporation has been formed 
 entitled the Wild Gardens of Acadia, to be governed, when its organization 
 shall have been' completed, by a small body of trustees appointed trienially by 
 a few natural history museums and biological associations, by the American 
 Institute of Architects, and certain others interested in landscape architectural 
 and gardening education, and by the Secretary of the Interior, head of the 
 National Park System. 
 
 ..The purpose of the Wild Gardens Corporation is to provide sanctuaries for 
 the plant and animal life — the flora and fauna — of the Acadian region, places 
 of special fitness where that life in every valuable or interesting form may 
 dwell securely and perpetuate itself in its natural environment; and to make 
 those sanctuaries useful not only in conservation but as an opportunity for 
 study, a source of pleasure, and a means of information. 
 
 The Sieur de Monts National Monument is to be looked upon in this respect 
 as its accomplishment, and nowhere in the world, perhaps, is there an area of 
 like extent better fitted for such purpose. It is the summer heat and winter 
 •cold in their extremes that limit northward and southward the distribution 
 of plant and animal species, and both are profoundly influenced in the park by 
 the surrounding ocean with its great sweeping tides. In it, accordingly, plants 
 of the subarctic zone grow along with others living in the mountainous portions 
 of Virginia and the Carolinas ; and coastal species with those of the interior. 
 
 The park itself is a remarkable piece of topography. A once solid granite 
 mass, some 15 miles in length, facing the sea, has been carved by the greatest 
 
MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 37 
 
 . of all terrestrial erosive forces — ice and ocean — attacking it from opposite sides 
 into a dozen mountain groups, separated by deep lakes and valleys and an 
 ocean fiord. 
 
 Firm in its resistance as no sea-laid rock — limestone, slate, or sandstone- 
 can be splitting into giant fragments piled like masonry and making wonderful 
 foregrounds to the blue ocean plain beyond, it is an Alpine chain in small, 
 while every frost-rent crack and crevice on it, bottomed with sand and humus 
 from the slow weathering of the surface and the dropping leaves, becomes a 
 miniature rock garden filled With northern plants — blueberries and mountain 
 cranberries, the tailing arbutus, mountain holly, and a host besides, while 
 the bearberry with its shining foliage and brilliant, deep-red berries spreads 
 out great carpets over the rock itself. 
 
 At the mountains' northern foot, where the ice sheet's course was checked, 
 and occupying the dividing valleys, through which it ground its way with 
 concentrated force, there are deep basins, excavated glacial fashion from the 
 rock. These are partly filled with water, making a series of lakes and moun- 
 tain tarns ; partly with peat and washed-in glacial sands and clays, the fertile 
 detritus from a sea-laid rock more ancient than the granite which is the bed- 
 rock of the country. In them deep-seated springs well up, unfailing, clear 
 and cold, keeping the basins full through summer droughts and creating ideal 
 heaths and meadows for the growth of hog and meadow plants — the rhodora, 
 the northern kalmias, Labrador tea, the native lilies in their different species, 
 the native iris, meadow sweet and meadow rue, the brilliant cardinal flower, 
 wild roses, and a number of wild orchids. 
 
 The woods in the monument are exceedingly interesting including as they 
 do what are now perhaps the only fragments of primeval forest — untouched 
 but for the early loss of their great pines — along the eastern coast, plundered 
 elsewhere for its ease of transport. There is no forest in the world that has 
 a more delightful floor, rich in the underplants whose home is in its shade and 
 whose soil is the leaf mould — the accumulation of centuries perhaps in the slow- 
 wasting north — which carpets it. Here a different group of plants displays its 
 beauty : The Clintonia, making great beds beneath the oaks and other hard- 
 wood trees, with splendid leaves and the most beautiful blue berries in the 
 world; the Twin Flower beloved of Linnreus; the Dwarf Cornel, covering 
 sun-penetrated spaces with its white flowers and red, clustered berries; the 
 Rattlesnake Plantain, quaintest of northern orchids, which forms delightful 
 clumps of mottled foliage spread flat upon the ground ; the Fringed Orchid and 
 the Lady's Slippers ; the Painted Trillium or Wake Robin, one of the most 
 beautiful of woodland flowers ; the Twisted Stalk with its drooping, brick-red 
 berries ; the Winter-green and Partridge Berry ; the Ground Yew that haunts 
 the forest depths ; the Ferns, the Mosses and the brilliant Fungi. 
 
 In shrubs, too, Acadia and the park are rich. The blueberry grows so 
 abundantly and fruits so freely on the mountains in the Park that the Gov- 
 ernment has taken it for its emblem. The Wild Roses form great clumps 
 along the roadsides and the banks of streams, flowering with a grace ami 
 beauty scarce any cultivated plant can equal. The blackberry throws out long, 
 graceful stems of bloom. The Sumach takes on a habit of singular luxuriance 
 in this northern land and is an object of delight from its first leafing in the 
 spring until it drops its flaming, red and yellow foliage with the late autumn 
 frosts. It is a home of the Viburnums, and the most beautiful species in the 
 world — and the most difficult to cultivate — V. lantanoides, grows in it in wild 
 profusion, lighting in June the shade of woodland valleys with its pure white 
 bloom. At no time, from the blossoming of the Amelanchier or Wild Pear in 
 spring, along with that of the first Wild Strawberries and Violets, to the 
 strange October flowering of the Witch Hazel and the clustered fruiting of the 
 native Rowan Tree or Mountain Ash. is there a period when flowers or brilliant 
 fruits are lacking to make the wayside beautiful. Each period has its own 
 beauty, too : the awakening of spring with its swift northern progress and 
 rapidly succeeding blossoms ; the midsummer period of the Wild Roses' bloom ; 
 the autumn beauty of the Goldenrods and Asters, of fruiting Thorns and 
 brilliant Ilex berries and the Wild Rose hips. Nor is there any place upon 
 the Continent where the autumnal change of leaf is of richer color or more 
 strikingly set off. The red clumps of Blueberry are glorious then upon the 
 granite ledges, contrasted by the gray rocks and mosses and the dark rich 
 green of the Pitch Pine. The Oaks upon the rocky slopes below, turned to 
 glowing crimson, are splendid against White Pines and Spruces. The Beech 
 leaves' golden brown, the golden yellow of the Birch and Poplar, the warm- 
 
38 MOUNT DESERT NATIONAL PARK. 
 
 toned red of the Swamp Maple and nameless wealth of color in the heaths it 
 borders make wonderful, illuminated foregrounds to the blue sea, the lakes or 
 the inclosing bays as one looks down on them from the mountain paths. 
 
 Viewed in this aspect, the park is like a great Rock Garden set by nature 
 (in the ocean verge and needing only to be made accessible by entrance roads 
 and paths ; to have its woodlands cared for and protected against disease or 
 fire ; to have such injury as men have done repaired, rank growths give place 
 to finer ones, and every spot within its bounds of special interest or beauty 
 given its full value. And to be made, besides, as nature has singularly fitted 
 it to be, a safe refuge for the region's native life — plant or animal — as the 
 human tide sweeps over, preserving it in every finer form and handing it 
 down — self perpetuated in its natural environment — to future generations for 
 their delight and profit. 
 
 fThe needs are clear, but the adaptation of a great coastal landscape to the 
 annual refreshment of a multitude of men and women seeking happiness and 
 health and energy — physical and mental uplift — after the confinements and 
 fatigues of city life is a matter calling for the best intelligence and skill that 
 can be given it. Rightly done, the benefit — not only to those who come but 
 to the work they do elsewhere and the communities they serve — multiplied by 
 the years will be immeasurable ; wrongly done, a great opportunity will have 
 been lost, perhaps forever. 
 
 The area is unique ; there is no other like it. The problem is to preserve in 
 the midst of a great annual flood of summer visitors the wild, primeval beauty 
 :ind untamed, elemental character which make it so and combine with the cool 
 summer climate and the presence of the sea to draw men to it. 
 
 X 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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 Hollinger 
 
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 MM Run F03-2193