gcls_WFP_599

UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK
ESTES PARK, COLO.

OFFICE OF THE SUPERINTENDENT

September 4, 1929

[[Mr. John M. Holmes]],
Y. M. C. A.,
Greenville, South Carolina.

Dear Mr. Holmes:

At the request of the Honorable [[J. J. McSwain]], of South Carolina,
we are forwarding to you, by express, a piece of stone weighing ap-
proximately twenty pounds, for the boys' camp which you are constructing
in your section.

I assume that, to best serve its purpose, the story of the rock
should be told, and it is this:

The rock is Big Thompson Schist. It was laid down, layer by layer,
mostly mud and a little sand, on an ocean floor. More layers were de-
posited on top of it, burying it deeper and deeper. How many thousand
feet of rock weere above it we cannot estimate, but the pressure on it
was sufficient to compress it until it was cemented into a firm, solid
mass. Then it experienced a new adventure - it was pushed up by the
pressure of a molten granite mass from below. As it was forced up, the
layers above it were worn away, but the heat generated was intense. A
finger of hot liquid granit forced its way through it, prying apart
the layers, and it was pushed and shoved and mashed so that when it was
once more at rest it was completely changed. It was left with a
permanent wave. Little by little the rock above it was broken by frost
and washed away and finally this rock was exposed - two miles above sea
level in what we now call Rocky Mountain National Park. A new experience,
however, awaited it. Snow fell and buried it. More snow and then ice,
and the ice began to move. The creeping ice, shod with boulders, scratched,
cut, reshaped the valley and polished its rock walls. Now the ice has all
but disappeared, but its work is shown in all the high mountain valleys of
Rocky Mountain National Park just as if the ice had melted yesterday
instead of centuries ago.

The rock that we are sending does not show the glacial polish, as it
seemed impossible to find one that came within the specifications. I
hope that the specimen will serve its purpose, in what seems to be a
worth while project.

Sincerely yours,
Edmund Rogers

[[Edmund B. Rogers]], Superintendent

EBR:MMS

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