Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1880.djvu/68

66 I would also make the following recommendations:

First. That a board of three competent persons be appointed by the President to superintend the laying out and building of roads and bridges and to make plans for further improvements, and to make the necessary contracts, and to audit the accounts therefor; the members of such board to receive no salary, but to have their actual expenses allowed while engaged in the discharge of their duties; that this board be authorized to employ a competent person as custodian of the park, at a salary of —— dollars, and also to organize a police force of at least ten members, to afford visitors the necessary protection and aid, to protect the craters of the geysers and basins of the hot springs from destruction and defacement, and to enforce the regulations mentioned below.

Secondly. That the Secretary of the Interior be authorized to invite the Academy of Science to designate a proper person to observe the extraordinary volcanic phenomena in the park, to analyze its waters, and to make a report thereon, a suitable compensation therefor to be fixed by this department.

In view of the fact that the destruction of game is going on in the Western country at a rapid rate; that some of the valleys of the National Park have for years been favorite places for the wholesale slaughter of elk and deer; that it would be desirable to preserve in some locality specimens of the more notable wild animals of that region, and that the Yellowstone Park appears to be a very suitable place for that purpose, I have deemed it proper, under the law authorizing the Secretary of the Interior to make regulations for the government of the park, to prohibit the hunting and killing of game in it altogether; while fishing, except with nets and seines, is to be left free. Regulations have also been made concerning the grazing of cattle on the pasture lands of the park. As the enforcement of some of these regulations will require the enactment of a law providing a penalty for their violation, a draught of a bill to that end will be submitted to the consideration of Congress.

GAS COMPANIES.

The report of the inspector of gas and meters shows that the gas companies of the District of Columbia have generally during the year furnished gas in purity and illuminating power equal to the requirements of the act of June 23, 1874.

The report of the inspector sets forth the results of experiments made in the early part of the present year to determine the quantity of light given by different burners consuming the same amount of gas, which will be of interest to the public.

The inspector suggests that the law should be so modified as to require the gas companies of the District, within a specified time, to replace all meters now in use which have not been inspected with meters which have been inspected, proved, and sealed, and, also, to require that when, for any purpose whatever, the heads of meters which have been inspected