GLACIER NATIONAL PARR, The, a public park set aside by presidential proclama tion pursuant to authority conferred by the act of .11 May 1910. It lies just south of the Ca nadian line, including portions of Teton and Flathead counties, Mont. It includes that part of the front range of the Rocky Mountains in Montana. In shape it is an irregular rec tangle. On the west it is bounded by the north fork of Flathead River, on the south by the middle fork of Flathead River and the Great Northern Railroad and on the east by the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. The Continental Divide extends through the park from north west to southeast. The eastern face is pre cipitous. Long ridges or shoulders extend from the Divide westward. This mountain chain is not a single narrow ridge, as may be assumed from its appearance at a distance, but is many miles in width, varying from 18 to 25 miles, and consists of a network of ridges and high spurs. The mountain mass has been regarded as two distinct ranges, the Livingston range on the west, and the Lewis range on the east. The Continental Divide joins the two ranges at Flattop Mountain by a low pass. The park covers 915,000 acres, or about 1,450 square miles. The greatest length at any place of the irregular outline is about 45 miles. The greatest width is along the Canadian-United States boundary line, nearly 35 There are about 80 glaciers between five square miles and a few acres in area. These glaciers, scattered throughout the area, give the name to the park. There are about 250 lakes, from those covering a few acres to those of larger size, several miles in length. The lakes are surrounded by steep and beautiful mountains. One of the interesting features of the park is the peculiarly rugged topography, the abrupt mountains in this part of the range being largely in the park area. There are mountains with vertical walls from a few hundred to more than 4,000 feet in height. Glaciers are perched high along the range in protected places, with waterfalls and cascades from a few feet to 2,500 feet. The western slope of the mountains is gradual and covered with timber, while the eastern face is abrupt. One passes at once from the rugged peaks, glaciers and waterfalls to the smooth, treeless, glaciated plains. The high summits are
not .regularly arranged, some occurring in the Continental Divide, others on the spurs pro jecting from either side. While the mountains are not high they rise from low plain or valley, 3,153 feet elevation at Lake McDonald and 4,186 at Waterton Lake on the north. They rise to heights of over 10,000 feet, with im posing grandeur. The peaks rising more than 10,000 feet above the sea are Mount Cleveland.
10,438; Mount Stimpson, 10,155; Kintla Peak, 10,100; Mount Jackson, 10,023; Mount Siveh, 10,004. The Garden Wall is a name applied to the stupendous portion of the Divide between Swift Current Pass and Gould Mountain, above Grinnell Glacier. This portion of the mountains is of marvelous beauty and grandeur. Other precipitous walls of great height are seen on the way from Saint Mary Lake to Lake Ellen Wilson on the trail over Gunsight Pass. At Triple Divide Peak the water flows from its sides into three oceans through Norris Creek and Saint Mary Lake to Hudson Bay and the Arctic; through Cut Bank Creek into the Mis souri and the Gulf of Mexico; and through Nyack Creek into Flathead River, thence to Clark's Fork of the Columbia River and the Pacific. The abruptness, beauty and mag nificence of the mountains have been produced by uplifting and faulting of the rocks. Break ing in the rock strata in a number of places occurred, and the rocks on the west side of the folds were pushed upward and eastward over the then surface rocks. The mountain rocks were shoved over the rocks of the plains, pro ducing an overthrust fault. Through these hard and precipitous cliffs streams have cut through the overthrust mass and down into the soft rocks of the plains. This overthrust fault may readily be traced on the surface, as it makes an irregular zigzag from spur to valley. This thrust has been traced through and beyond the park in either direction. The full extent is not yet determined, but in one place the rocks have been shoved over the underlying former surface a distance of 15 miles, the direction being northeast. Streams and glaciation have carved the mountains in later times.