Glimpses of our national parks . ,000,000 years ago, before the continent of North America hademerged in its present outlines from the sea, the shales which nowloom so loftily in Glacier National Park were deposited as sedimentsin the waters. Over these muds thick beds of ooze solidified intolimestones, and over the limestones more sediments deposited andturned to shales. It is these very strata, now hardened into rocks,that streak so picturesquely the sides of Glacier precipices thousandsof feet above us. The story of their elevation from deep-sea bottomsto these giddy heights is a romantic c
Glimpses of our national parks . ,000,000 years ago, before the continent of North America hademerged in its present outlines from the sea, the shales which nowloom so loftily in Glacier National Park were deposited as sedimentsin the waters. Over these muds thick beds of ooze solidified intolimestones, and over the limestones more sediments deposited andturned to shales. It is these very strata, now hardened into rocks,that streak so picturesquely the sides of Glacier precipices thousandsof feet above us. The story of their elevation from deep-sea bottomsto these giddy heights is a romantic chapter in the making ofAmerica. The earth has assumed its present proportions through the set-tling of its masses, and this settling caused great internal pressures. Often the earths skin has broken as the skin of the squeezedorange breaks; and that is what must have happened where GlacierNational Park now lies. The bottom of the sea, under the enormouspressure against its sides and from below, gradually rose and becamedry photograph by H. T. Cowling Charactekistic Pointed Mountain in Glacier National PaekMount Rockwell, overlooking Tv/o Medicine Lake 42 OUR NATIONAL PARKS. Then the land at this point, probably because it was pushed hardby the contracting land masses on both sides of it, rose in long irreg-ular wavelike masses, forming mountains. Then, when the rockcould no longer stand the awful strain, it cracked, and one edge wasthrust upward and over the other edge and settled into its presentposition. The edge that was thrust over the other was thousands of feetthick. It crumbled into peaks, precipices, and gorges. Upon these mountains and precipices the snows and the rains ofuncounted centuries have since fallen, and the ice and the watershave worn and carved them into the area of distinguished beauty thatis to-day the Glacier National Park. But mark this: When the western edge of the earths cracked skinoverthrust the eastern edge, it brought its bottom surface ove
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Keywords: ., bookauthorunitedstatesnationalp, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920
