Page:Title 3 CFR 2000 Compilation.djvu/62

 Proc. 7295 Title 3--The President spires in areas such as the Needles. The magnificent Kern Canyon forms the eastern boundary of the monument's southern unit. The canyon follows an ancient fault, forming the only major north-south river drainage in the Sierra Nevada. Remnants of volcanism are expressed as hot springs and soda springs in some drainages. Particularly in the northern unit of the monument, limestone outcrops, remnants of an ancient seabed, are noted for their caves. Subfossil vegeta- tion entombed within ancient woodrat middens in these caves has pro- vided the only direct evidence of where giant sequoias grew during the Pleistocene Era, and documents substantial vegetation changes over the last 50,000 or more years. Vertebrate fossils also have been found within the middens. Other paleontological resources are found in meadow sediments, which hold detailed records of the last l0 millennia of changing vegetation, fire regimes, and volcanism in the Sierra Nevada. The multi-millennial, annual- and seasonal-resolution records of past fire regimes held in giant sequoia tree-rings are unique worldwide. During the past 8,000 years, Native American peoples of the Sierra Nevada have lived by hunting and fishing, gathering, and trading with other people throughout the region. Archaeological sites such as lithic scatters, food- processing sites, rock shelters, village sites, petroglyphs, and pictographs are found in the monument. These sites have the potential to shed light on the roles of prehistoric peoples, including the role they played in shap- ing the ecosystems on which they depended. One of the earliest recorded references to giant sequoias is found in the notes of the Walker Expedition of 1833, which described "trees of the red- wood species, incredibly large .... "The world became aware of giant sequoias when sections of the massive trees were transported east and dis- played as curiosities for eastern audiences. Logging of giant sequoias throughout the Sierra Nevada mountain range began in \177856. Logging has continued intermittently to this day on nonfederal lands within the area of the monument. Early entrepreneurs, seeing profit in the gigantic trees, began acquiring lands within the present monument under the Timber and Stone Act in the \177880s. Today our understanding of the history of the Hume Lake and Converse Basin areas of the monument is supported by a treasure trove of historical photographs and other documentation. These records provide a unique and unusually clear picture of more than half a century of logging that resulted in the virtual removal of most forest in some areas of the monument. Outstanding opportunities exist for studying forest resilience to large-scale logging and the consequences of different ap- proaches to forest restoration. Section 2 of the Act of June 8, \177906 (34 Stat. 225, \1776 U.S.C. 431) authorizes the President, in his discretion, to declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest that are situated upon lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States to be national monuments, and to re- serve as a part thereof parcels of land, the limits of which in all cases, shall be confined to the smallest area compatible with the proper care and man- agement of the objects to be protected. WHEREAS it appears that it would be in the public interest to reserve such lands as a national monument to be known as the Giant Sequoia National Monument: 62

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