ed for the purpose of protecting the
Olympic elk, a species peculiar to the region. Deer and other wild
animals also are abundant.

WHEELER NATIONAL MONUMENT

High under the Continental Divide in southwestern Colorado near Creede,
a valley of high altitude, grotesquely eroded in tufa, rhyolite, and
other volcanic rock, is named the Wheeler National Monument in honor of
Captain George Montague Wheeler, who conducted geographical explorations
between 1869 and 1879. Its deep canyons are bordered by lofty pinnacles
of rock. It is believed that General John C. Fremont here met the
disaster which drove back his exploring-party of 1848, fragments of
harness and camp equipment and skeletons of mules having been found.

VERENDRYE NATIONAL MONUMENT

The first exploration of the northern United States east of the Rocky
Mountains is commemorated by the Verendrye National Monument at the Old
Crossing of the Missouri River in North Dakota. Here rises Crowhigh
Butte, on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, an eminence commanding a
wide view in every direction.

Verendrye, the celebrated French explorer, started from the north shore
of Lake Superior about 1740 and passed westward and southward into the
regions of the great plains. He or his sons, for the records of their
journeys are confusing, passed westward into Montana along a course
which Lewis and Clark paralleled in 1806, swung southward in the
neighborhood of Fort Benton, and skirted the Rockies nearly to the
middle of Wyoming, passing within a couple of hundred miles of the
Yellowstone National Park.

Crowhigh Butte is supposed to have given the Verendryes their first
extensive view of the upper Missouri. The butte was long a landmark to
guide early settlers to Old Crossing.

SULLY'S HILL NATIONAL PARK

Congress created the Sully's Hill National Park in North Dakota in 1904
in response to a local demand. Its hills and meadows constitute a museum
of practically the entire flora of the State. The United States
Biological Survey maintains there a wild-animal preserve for elk, bison,
antelope, and other animals representative of the northern plains.

SITKA NATIONAL MONUMENT

On Baranoff Island, upon the southeastern shore of Alaska, is a
reservation known as the Sitka National Monument which commemorates an
important episode in the early history of Alaska. On this tract, which
lies within a mile of the steamboat-landing at Sitka, formerly stood the
village of