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Forest-covered mountains, green hillsides, rippling streams, lakes, farms, orchards, and towns would appear as if by magic. Frémont, "the Pathfinder," did greater service than any other man in making known the geographic features of the Cordilleran region.
Africa has one such, though it is north of the centre, and extends to the shores of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. The only continent without this central nearly rainless field is South America, where the sole characteristic arid district is situated on the western slope of the Cordilleran range.
It is believed that a number of these volcanic eruptions have occurred in the Cordilleran region of the United States since the discovery of America, and that one took place within the lifetime of many persons now living. San Francisco Mountain, in northern Arizona, is the loftiest volcanic peak of a region dotted with volcanoes and lava flows.
Any good map will show that the mountains of the Cordilleran region have in general a north and south direction. Their direction was determined by fissures formed long ago in the crust of the earth. Movements have continued to take place along many of these fissures up to the present time, and probably will continue for some time to come.
There were thus three vast ice fields, one the Cordilleran, which lay upon the Cordilleras of British America; one the Keewatin, which flowed out from the province of Keewatin, west of Hudson Bay; and one the LABRADOR ice field, whose center of dispersion was on the highlands of the peninsula of Labrador.
Here are volcanoes and lava fields so extensive as almost to bury from sight the older surface of the earth. Some of them appear as if but yesterday they had been glowing with heat. In the Cordilleran region Nature has carried on her work with a master hand. She has lifted the earth's crust to form a great plateau.
From certain imperfect reports which we have concerning evidences of glaciation in Central America and in the Andean district in the northern part of South America, it seems possible that at one time the upland ice along the Cordilleran chain existed from point to point along that system of elevations, so that the widest interval between the fields of permanent snow with their attendant glaciers did not much exceed a thousand miles.
Then came the discovery of the precious metals, and thousands of gold-seekers crossed the plains, and spread out over the mountains of the Cordilleran region. They, too, expected to get rich by making use of the resources of the country, and return to their homes in the East.
Owing to their large area and somewhat varied positions, these parks provide a safe refuge for a great part of the life which belongs in the Cordilleran district of the United States. If the method should be extended to the whole country, we should have the peculiar satisfaction of having been the first state to institute the system of preservation which is here suggested.
It will be observed, for instance, that the form of North America is in general determined by the position of the Appalachian and Cordilleran systems on its eastern and western margins, though there are a number of smaller chains, such as the Laurentians in Canada and the ice-covered mountains of Greenland, which have a measure of influence in fixing its shore lines.
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