e estimated to have visited it in 1914. It was not, however,
till the national park was created, in 1915, that the mountains assumed
considerable importance except as an agreeable and inspiring background
to the broad plateau.

V

McKINLEY, GIANT OF GIANTS

MOUNT MCKINLEY NATIONAL PARK, ALASKA. AREA, ABOUT 2,200 SQUARE MILES

The monster mountain of this continent, "the majestic, snow-crowned
American monarch," as General Greeley called it, was made a national
park in 1917. Mount McKinley rises 20,300 feet above tide-water, and
17,000 feet above the eyes of the beholder standing on the plateau at
its base. Scenically, it is the highest mountain in the world, for those
summits of the Andes and Himalayas which are loftier as measured from
sea level, can be viewed closely only from valleys whose altitudes range
from 10,000 to 15,000 feet. Its enormous bulk is shrouded in perpetual
snow two-thirds down from its summit, and the foothills and broad plains
upon its north and west are populated with mountain sheep and caribou in
unprecedented numbers.

To appreciate Mount McKinley's place among national parks, one must know
what it means in the anatomy of the continent. The western margin of
North America is bordered by a broad mountainous belt known as the
Pacific System, which extends from Mexico northwesterly into and through
Alaska, to the very end of the Aleutian Islands, and includes such
celebrated ranges as the Sierra Nevada, the Cascade, and the St. Elias.
In Alaska, at the head of Cook Inlet, it swings a sharp curve to the
southwest and becomes Alaska's mountain axis. This sharp curve, for all
the world like a monstrous granite hinge connecting the northwesterly
and southwesterly limbs of the System, is the gigantic Alaska Range,
which is higher and broader than the Sierra Nevada, and of greater
relief and extent than the Alps. Near the centre of this range, its
climax in position, height, bulk, and majesty, stands Mount McKinley.
Its glistening peak can be seen on clear days in most directions for two
hundred miles.

For many years Mount St. Elias, with its eighteen thousand feet of
altitude, was considered North America's loftiest summit. That was
because it stands in that part of Alaska which was first developed. The
Klondike region, far northward, was well on the way to development
before McKinley became officially recognized as the mountain climax of
the continent. But that does not mean that it re