(3.) Railroads would mean the inevitable destruction of the large game. The winter snows are too deep among the hills for game to subsist there. It is necessary to come down into the valleys, where there is more grass and less snow. But, as already stated, it is through these valleys that railroads must pass if at all. The trains would frighten the animals back into the hills, where starvation would await them. Moreover, the loss of game from poaching would be greatly aggravated by the increased facility of clandestine access to that region. (4.) Railroads would destroy the Park forests. During July, August, and September, there are always long periods of dry weather when the dense bodies of fallen timber, the impenetrable tangles of underbrush, and the luxuriant prairie grass are a mass of inflammable tinder. A spark converts it into a conflagration. A railroad winding its way through this country would render protection against fires, even now a matter of great difficulty, wholly out of the question. Referring to this subject in his annual report for 1894, the Superintendent of the Park says: "Six months from the entrance of the first locomotive within the limits of the Park, there will not be one acre of its magnificent forests left unburned." What such a catastrophe would mean to the future development of the surrounding country may be appreciated by a perusal of our chapter on the Flora of the Yellowstone. (5.) As a matter of public policy, the granting of a railway franchise in the Park is objectionable because it necessarily creates a perpetual monopoly of a public privilege. There is no practicable way to avoid it. It has been proposed to compel the railroad to share the advantage of this monopoly with the public, by paying a certain percentage of earnings on its Park business to constitute an improvement fund. With Union Pacific history fresh in the public mind, the government will not be likely to enter into a partnership of that precarious nature. From the foregoing exposition, it is clear that only the most cogent reasons should ever sanction the construction of railroads in the Yellowstone Park. These reasons, from the standpoint of the railroad companies, as set forth by the promoters of a recent bill before Congress, fall under two heads.