hotels and camps, but, with the exception of the Yellowstone, the statutory provisions in this regard are decidedly flimsy. This was also the case with the Yellowstone itself, until it narrowly escaped being surrendered to a company which secured from an Assistant Secretary of the Interior a lease to a number of sites, of about one square mile each, and aggregating some 4,400 acres. These parcels were so disposed that the concessionaires would control most of the chief scenic features of the park. The friends of the park, the despised "scenery savers," rallied to its defense on that occasion in time to frustrate the plan before it was carried to completion. They also managed to secure from Congress a special act which limited the leasable area and forbade the alienation of any of the natural wonders.

At Mount Rainier and at Crater Lake there is no legal limit to the area which may to-day be allotted to a hotel, and at Wind Cave Park the law specifically provides that the cavern, the principal natural wonder of the park, may be leased.

It will also be surprising to many to learn that in seven of the parks there are private lands aggregating more than 78,000 acres. For example, there are private claims in the Yosemite Park which equal more than two per cent of that park's total area. Moreover, these claims control much of the finest timber in the park. Repeatedly Secretaries of the Interior have recommended that Congress should extinguish these claims by purchase, but nothing has ever come of it. The presence of these private lands makes a proper administration of the parks difficult and unsatisfactory. Even mining is permitted in two of the parks by the terms of the creating acts. At Mount Rainier Park alone there are 178 outstanding mining claims.

These parks are chiefly supported by annual appropriations by Congress. Added to the funds thus provided, the Interior Department is authorized to use whatever is realized from the leases and concessions. At the Hot Springs in Arkansas the revenues are alone sufficient to carry on the park; but, on the other hand, there are four parks from which not one cent of revenue is derived.

It might naturally be supposed that the revenues from the hotel leases and the concessions, especially in the Yellowstone, would amount to a considerable sum. All told, these returns amounted last year to a paltry $65,345.06, and the Congressional appropriations for the current year amounted to only $191,450 for all purposes. Of this, $115,000 was a special appropriation for road construction in the Yellowstone and Mount Rainier Parks, and to be expended, not by the legal custodian, the Secretary of the Interior, not even under his direction, but by the engineers of the army. This has been the practice for some years when funds are granted for large engineering undertakings in the parks. In this way the Government secures the assistance of its corps of highly trained military engineers without extra outlay, which is desirable from every point of view. But why, pray, should this not be done under the direction of the officer who is directly responsible for the parks as a whole?

The infinitesimal returns from the valuable concessions forms one of the most surprising facts connected with this exhibit of park conditions, and it is encouraging to note that Secretary Ballinger has lately announced his intention to inquire into the

matter.

It is to be hoped that the Secretary will not confine his inquiry to this phase alone. He is the steward over many of the most important of the Nation's assets, among them these scenic treasuries. It is well-nigh impossible for him properly to fulfill his trust under the existing park laws. Why not, then, take advantage of the recommendation of the National Conservation Commission that the public land laws, as a whole, should be revised, and urge upon Congress the necessity for a comprehensive codification and amendment of the National park statutes?

It is confidently believed that the Nation will be content to value these possessions purely for their ennobling influences. If, however, we must consider them from the commercial standpoint, let it not be forgotten that Switzerland regards its scenery as a money-producing asset to the extent of some two hundred millions of dollars annually.

coast.

EABRIGHT! Not the Seabright most people see. Below lies the sandy spit, with its scant vegetation and its too prominent cottages in a long row up and down the But the Seabright which most people do not see-the smiling green country, the hedge-bordered lanes, the luxuriant vegetation, and the distant view of the Navesink Hills. In such a country, and yet not far from Seabright station, one finds the summer home and the summer studio of Mr. John W. Alexander.

This artist cannot help working even in his "Sommerfrische," as the Germans say. During his dozen years in France he would take an old farm-house on the coast, or a château on the Seine would be lent to him by some friend, but, despite the delights of one or the other kind of residence, he would return to Paris with twenty pictures ready for the exhibitions. So it is in America. At the time of my visit to his summer studio there were three important large canvases which emphasized the Alexander technical characteristics and showed conclusively the poet in the painter.

The studio is about an eighth of a mile away from Mr. Alexander's house. One walks across the lawn surrounding the residence, past the tennis court, and through the well-kept vegetable garden to a huge, barnlike-looking building. It incloses an immense room in which the mural decorations for the Carnegie Insti

tute at Pittsburgh and many of the Alexander portraits have been painted. Here the artist is seen at work. He is a tall, alert, well-set-up man. His glance is penetrating, seemingly reinforced by his physical well-being. You feel yourself in the presence of a typical American, a kind of cosmopolitanized Brother Jonathan. Mr. Alexander has the nervous energy, the acuteness, the keenness, with which we are accustomed to associate the conventionalized Brother Jonathan. But he also has the poise, the balance, the serenity, the indefinable charm, which come from knowledge of many men and many lands, and of long experience with both. As one watches him at work in his studio, as one talks with him, this double impress is increasingly felt.

One day a jury of artists asked the late James McNeill Whistler to criticise a student's work. He quickly remarked,

"The man can't draw."

Looking at the work more closely, he said, "He can't paint."

Then he protested, "And he has no sense of color."

"But," concluded Whistler, decisively, "he does not have to have it."

For the student's work had revealed to Whistler something beyond mere technique—an indefinable personal, individual atmosphere, a revelation of the subject's soul. The portrait in question was not, it is true, exactly like the original; indeed, the eyes, the brow, the hair, the nose, the mouth, were decidedly unlike; but looking from those eyes was the individual's soul.