The Philipsburg Mail

A New National Park.
To the Yellowstone and Yosemite parks, already set aside as national ones, will soon be added a third one, not less interesting than those great sections of wonderland. The new park will be in the state of Washington, along the Cascade mountain range. If congress gets done with the tariff, the silver coinage question and the Hawaiian question in time to attend to it, probably there will be passed this session the bill introduced by Senator Watson C. Squire of Washington state to set aside forever the Pacific forestry reserve as a national park. The Pacific forestry reserve lies about the base of magnificent Mount Tacoma. It covers 1,500 square miles in the southwestern part of Washington state and is 40 miles southeast of the city of Tacoma. The name Senator Squire proposes is the Washington National park. But are there not already two or three things and people named Washington? Go to! The right name for the new national play ground is Tacoma park.

Carl Snyder writes in The Review of Reviews a glowing description of the Pacific forestry reserve. Its length from east to west is 40 miles, from north to south 38 miles, and it embraces a million acres of land. It is larger than Rhode Island. As this magnificent tract in the Cascade mountains has already been set aside as a forestry reservation, there will be no difficulty in converting it into a national park. This should be done without delay.

Great Mount Tacoma is over 15,000 feet high, the loftiest peak in North America. Its snow white dome can be seen at Victoria, 160 miles away. Around its base lies what Mr. Snyder says is the most remarkable glacial system in the world. There are 14 huge ice fields from a mile to 12 miles in length. "All the glaciers of the Alps might be snugly stowed away in a minor segment of this immense circle." Yet thousands of Americans flock to see the Swiss glaciers every summer, leaving the greater wonder unknown at home. In these ice fields six rivers take their rise. It was partly to protect them that the government set apart the forestry reservation.

On the southern slope of Tacoma, shut in by glaciers, lies warm, fertile Paradise valley—so warm, rich and sunny that semitropical vegetation flourishes there. The soil is volcanic, made by the crumbling away of the eruptive matter from craters now long extinct.