en species in
their normal state. Even in ideal reservations where all invasions are
excluded, we should have to expect that from time to time certain
forms would disappear, their place perhaps being taken by new species
which would arise. Such is the manner of the great procession of life.
Probably at least twenty and perhaps a hundred times as many species
as are now living on the earth have perished from it, and before the
unimaginable goal is attained as many others may pass away. Our task
with the refuges would be to keep the death of the specific
inhabitants to the natural and wholesome rate that is determined by
the endless struggle for existence.

It is impracticable at the present time to devise a scheme for refuge
stations in other countries than our own; it is evident, however,
that these would have to be numerous and widely distributed. A glance
at a map showing the political distribution of the lands will make it
evident, however, that within the holdings of the British, French,
German, Dutch, and Russian governments there are large areas which
might, without evident loss of considerable economic values,
immediate or prospective, be turned to such uses, and that these
reservations would probably include nearly all that would be
required to preserve the most important samples of the primitive
life. Some of them, as for instance those intended to retain the
large tropical animals in their natural state, would have to be as
imperial in their areas as the Yellowstone Park, but these would lie
in realms which have no present value to our own race and are
scantily inhabited by the indigenous peoples.

It is easy to see that the proposed world-wide system of wilderness
stations in which the native life should be preserved from the
destructive influences of man's assault upon it could not be brought
about without international cooperation and with a considerable
expenditure of money both for the foundation and maintenance of the
establishments; but, as before remarked, the idea of public
reservations of this nature is one which immediately and strongly
commended itself to the people of this country and has led their
representatives to set aside for such use lands which in the
aggregate amount to a larger area than some of our sister states.
The same motive is seen in the action of the State of Massachusetts,
which a few years ago created a Board of Trustees of Public
Reservations, a corporate body authorized to