"Storm." View near the same point an hour later.
The road recently completed to Paradise Valley should be widened, by all means, and made safer by retaining walls at every danger point. But it is doubtful whether automobiles will ever be permitted above the bridge at the Nisqually glacier. Some automobile owners regard the Park as an automobile-club preserve, and insist that nothing more be done toward the opening of its scenery or the conservation of its forest until it is made safe for them to run their touring cars into Paradise. This is unfortunate, because it betrays ignorance of the purpose of Congress in creating the National Parks, namely, the education and enjoyment of all the people, not the pleasure of a class. Moreover, no matter how wide or well-guarded the road may be above the bridge, it can never be wide enough to prevent a reckless chauffeur from causing a terrible fatality. It is necessarily a very crooked road, hung upon the high ledges of precipitous cliffs. While the road is safe for coaches drawn by well-broken horses and driven by trustworthy drivers, it would be criminal folly to open it to the crowd of automobiles that would rush to Paradise Valley. If automobiles are permitted to go beyond the Nisqually glacier, it should be only when in charge of a park officer.
Looking down on Nisqually Glacier from top of Gibraltar Rock, with storm clouds veiling the Mountain.
Measuring the Ice Flow in Nisqually Glacier. In 1905 Prof. J. N. Le Conte of Berkeley, Cal., established the fact that this glacier has an average flow, in summer, of 16.2 inches a day. The movement is greater at the center than on the sides, and greater on the convex side of a curve than on the concave side. It thus is a true river, though a slow one. The measurements are taken by running a line from one lateral moraine to the other with a transit, setting stakes across the glacier at short intervals, and ascertaining the advance they make from day to day.
Even from the older and wider roads of the Yellowstone automobiles have been excluded, although there are no large cities near by, as there are here, to send hundreds of cars into that park on any pleasant day. The automobilists will be wise to accept their privilege of access to the foot of the glacier, and use it with care, too. Several serious accidents have already occurred, and if greater care is not exercised, the Interior Department will apply the Yellowstone rule, at least to the extent of stopping all cars at Longmires.