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Glimpses of our National Monuments

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  • wcu_great_smoky_mtns-10670.jpg
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  • OUR NATIONAL MONUMENTS 15 the Book Cliff Mountains towers in the sky; to the east the most famous of all flat-top mountains, the Grand Mesa, stretches as far as the eye can see; nearer at hand the Colorado River winds and rewinds through the verdant Grand Valley with its countless orchards. At one's feet lies the rugged grandeur of the monument, a veritable forest of towering monoliths brilliantly colored in ever changing hues of red as becomes its name—the Colorado. Grand Junction on the main line of the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad and the National Roosevelt Midland Trail and Pikes Peak Ocean-to-Ocean Highway is the principal gateway city to the monument, which is about 5 miles distant. It is reached by an automobile road, but the more scenic sections must be viewed from the trails. CRATERS OF THE MOON NATIONAL MONUMENT In the semiarid portion of the Snake River Plateau in south central Idaho, at the foot of the White Komb Mountains, lies the Craters of the Moon National Monument, which was created May 2, 1924. It is a volcanic region, the most recent example of fissure eruption in the United States, and as its name signifies closely resembles the surface of the moon as seen through a telescope. Nowhere else in the United States can so many volcanic features be found in such a small area. The monument contains approximately 39 square miles. Although in a mountainous country, the monument itself is a vast plain sloping southward from an elevation of about 5,000 feet at the entrance to about 4,000 feet at the south end. The first volcanic features to be noticed as one enters the monument are numerous smooth cinder cones, while beyond is a huge black stream of lava spread out on the plain for miles. From a distance this appears smooth, but upon closer inspection is found to be exceedingly rough and covered with jagged fragments of lava and cinders. Farther south is a profusion of cinder cones, craters, and hornitos. The cones vary in height from 20 feet to 600 feet. On the western border the black lava flooded up against the southern spur of the White Komb Mountains making bays of lava in each valley, with the mountain ridges projecting between the lava bays like peninsulas extending out into a black sea. It is believed by scientists that the volcanic eruptions in this area lasted spasmodically over a period of at least a thousand years, and that the final eruptions may have occurred only a few hundred years ago. The newer lava in the northern part of the monument is devoid of vegetation with the exception of a few lichens, and on the cinder cones occasional tufts of
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Object’s are ‘parent’ level descriptions to ‘children’ items, (e.g. a book with pages).