There are seventeen National Parks. New ones will early be made and there are at least twenty other scenic regions which should at once be added. No nation has ever fallen for having too much scenery. Scenery is, indeed, one of our most valuable resources, and these Parks will enable us to build up a scenic industry of magnitude. Already they are being developed with roads and trails, and before long there will be in all of them hotels and camps for visitors of every taste, together with special camps and provision for school-children. I have tried to describe a few of the wonders of the Parks and to suggest the larger, fuller use of them. Through most of the Parks described I have had happy excursions afoot, alone and unarmed. Not only do the Parks contain some of the world's sublimest and most beautiful scenes, but each Park is a wild-life reservation, a place where guns are forbidden. Thus protected, these wildernesses will remain forever wild, forever mysterious and primeval, holding for the visitor the spell of the outdoors, exciting the spirit of exploration. Within them will survive that poetic million-year-old highway, the trail. Among their pathless scenes wild life will be perpetuated. Chains of mountain-peaks will ever stand--"the silent caravan that never passes by, the caravan whose camel backs are laden with the sky"--with purple forests, mountain-high waterfalls, vast and broken cañons, wind-swept plateaus, splendid lakes, and peaks and glaciers often touched with cloud and sunshine. Our National Parks will continue for generations to come to be the No Man's Land, the Undiscovered Country, the Mysterious Old West, the Land of Romance and Adventure. My great hope and belief is that they will become a marked factor in public education. Surely, these wonderlands mean much for the general welfare, and will help to develop greater men and women--to arouse enthusiasm for our native land, and for nature everywhere. E. A. M. CONTENTS I. THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 3 1. A CAMP-FIRE THAT MADE HISTORY 3 2. THE DISCOVERY OF THE YELLOWSTONE 10 3. THE GEYSERS, LAKES, AND STREAMS 28 4. AGES OF FIRE AND ICE 38 5. THE PETRIFIED FORESTS 45 6. AREA; TREES, FLOWERS, AND ANIMALS 51 7. ENTRANCES 53 8. ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY 54 9. LOST IN THE WILDERNESS 58