HOT SPRINGS RESERVATION, or HOT SPRINGS NATIONAL PARK, Ar kansas, the oldest of the 16 national parks of the United States. It now contains an area of 911 acres near the centre of Arkansas, and is visited annually by 125,000 or more persons who are attracted by the fame of the radio active waters. The authentic history of this place begins with 1804, in which year Dunbar and Hunter of the Lewis and Clark expedition visited the springs, as their report shows. A cabin was built here by Manuel Prudhomme in 1807, and he was joined in the same year by John Purciful and Isaac Cates, who engaged in hunting and trapping. Toward the end of the 20's there were permanent residents ; and in 1832 four sections of land were reserved by the government, with the hot springs near the centre. In 1878, however, this land was sold to various claimants, with the exception of that portion which now forms the Hot Springs Reservation, consisting of five units, namely, Hot Springs Mountain, Whittington Lake Reserve Park, and the North, West and Sugar Loaf mountains. The hot water springs issue forth only from the west slope and at the base of Hot Springs Mountain, which embraces 264 acres; the 46 springs, with an average daily flow of 826,000 gallons and an average tem perature of F., are confined within an area of 500 by 1,400 feet. The superintendent writes, in his report to the Secretary of the Interior for the fiscal year ended 30 June 1915, that °the trust reposed in the government by the people has been guarded with extreme care. The springs are now the property of the people, free from monopoly and extortion, and within the reach of all." But in the same year the government was urged—and with good reason — to provide for the erection of a new public bath. Mark Daniels, the general superintend ent and landscape engineer, wrote: °Hundreds of thousands of people have been relieved of suffering and as many have had their lives saved by virtue of the medicinal qualities of the waters of Arkansas. It is a great institu
tion and one that fully warrants the hearty support of our Federal government. The bath houses that are privately owned are many of them luxuriously appointed, and the growing contrast between the people who have money and can afford these bathhouses and the con ditions with which the poor are confronted in the free bathhouse is one that arouses righteous anger." Dr. Bertram B. Boltwood, of Yale University, authorized to report to the Secre tary of the Interior on the radioactivity of the waters, stated that he reached the following conclusions: 1. The waters of the springs on the Hot Springs Reservation are all radioactive to a marked degree. 2. The radioactivity of the waters is due to dissolved radium emanation (a gas), and not to the presence of salts of radium or other radioactive solids.
The Department of the Interior exercises no direct control or supervision over any mat ters connected with the city of Hot Springs, which is a municipality (pop. about 16,000) governed under State laws. Adjoining the res ervation and well supplied with all modern facilities (hotels, furnished apartments and cottages, etc.), it is built at an elevation of 600 feet above sea-level and the climate is good the year round. It is the county-seat of Garland County, 54 miles from Little Rock, on the Saint Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern, the Chi cago, Rock Island and Pacific and the Memphis, Dallas and Gulf railways. See NATIONAL PARKS AND MONUMENTS.