e have been content to wonder, not to know;
yet with scenery, as with all else, to know is to begin fully to enjoy.
Appreciation measures enjoyment. And this brings me to my proposition,
namely, that we shall not really enjoy our possession of the grandest
scenery in the world until we realize that scenery is the written page
of the History of Creation, and until we learn to read that page.

The national parks of America include areas of the noblest and most
diversified scenic sublimity easily accessible in the world;
nevertheless it is their chiefest glory that they are among the
completest expressions of the earth's history. The American people is
waking rapidly to the magnitude of its scenic possession; it has yet to
learn to appreciate it.

Nevertheless we love scenery. We are a nation of sightseers. The year
before the world war stopped all things, we spent $286,000,000 in going
to Europe. That summer Switzerland's receipts from the sale of
transportation and board to persons coming from foreign lands to see her
scenery was $100,000,000, and more than half, it has been stated
apparently with authority, came from America. That same year tourist
travel became Canada's fourth largest source of income, exceeding in
gross receipts even her fisheries, and the greater part came from the
United States; it is a matter of record that seven-tenths of the hotel
registrations in the Canadian Rockies were from south of the border. Had
we then known, as a nation, that there was just as good scenery of its
kind in the United States, and many more kinds, we would have gone to
see that; it is a national trait to buy the best. Since then, we have
discovered this important fact and are crowding to our national parks.

"Is it true," a woman asked me at the foot of Yosemite Falls, "that this
is the highest unbroken waterfall in the world?"

She was the average tourist, met there by chance. I assured her that
such was the fact. I called attention to the apparent deliberation of
the water's fall, a trick of the senses resulting from failure to
realize height and distance.

"To think they are the highest in the world!" she mused.

I told her that the soft fingers of water had carved this valley three
thousand feet into the solid granite, and that ice had polished its
walls, and I estimated for her the ages since the Merced River flowed at
the level of the cataract's brink.

"I've seen the tallest building in the world," she replied