GUEST EDITORIAL  -  THE GLEN CANYON DAM   (New York Times: July 6 1963) Earlier this year the floodgates of Glen Canyon Dam were closed, signaling the completion of a major engineering feat to control the Colorado River for hydroelectric power and irrigation. Now the flow has been halted halfway up the nearly two-hundred-mile-long Glen Canyon, from northern Arizona northeastward across southern Utah, as the waters fill in behind the dams. Many who knew the Glen say it was the gentlest, most intimate of the mighty canyons of the Colorado, indeed one of the outstanding natural scenic places anywhere in America. In 1669, when the first survey boat trip was made down the river, John Wesley Powell (for whom the reservoir is to be named) found infinitely fascinating the variety of natural features of this unusual canyon. "Past these towering monuments, past these mounded billows of orange sandstone, past these oak-set glens, past these fern-decked alcoves, past these mural curves, we glide hour after hour, stopping now and then, as our attention is arrested by some new wonder..." The eradication of so beautiful a land presents a puzzling commentary on the values of our society. Glen Canyon could have been placed beside Yosemite or Yellowstone to inspire future generations with its unsurpassed natural beauty. Instead, the loss of Glen beneath the silty waters of Lake Powell will surely become one of the tragedies of the conservation effort in the 20th century. As the Sierra Club points out in its magnificent new book, "The Place No One Knew: Glen Canyon of the Colorado", the loss of Glen can become a lesson to the future, a lesson to Americans that our failure vigorously to protect the best of our scenic heritage means we are sure to lose a great deal of it.
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THE DESERT TRADING POST Harry Melts
A Motorist Guide to the Navajo Indian Reservation is now available. Price $1.50 per copy, postpaid. Send to Reservation Publications, P.O. Box 245, Telluride, Colorado. The Outlook for Recreation in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area During 1963 is available for persons planning to visit the area. It makes for somewhat discouraging reading with the Park Service talking about the thrills and pleasures of rising waters, etc. This free pamphlet can be obtained by writing to the Superintendent, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Box 1507, Page, Arizona. Do you know who Flores Magon was? If not, you do not know the recent history of Baja California. This famous Mexican and the political turmoil of 1911 in Baja California is well analyzed and narrated in a recent (1962) book from the University of Wisconsin Press: The Desert Revolution, by L.L. Blairadell. Surprisingly little known, even among the more serious Baja California aficionados, is the book by Pablo L. Martinez, A History of Lower California (English edition). This book was published in Mexico City in 1960 and is quite comprehensive (nearly 600 pages) and up to date. The approximate price of the English edition is $10.00 and the publisher's address is Editorial Baja California. Av. Eacuela Industrial No. 46, Col. Industrial, Mexico, D.F. An exciting new book by the author of The Sierra: The Great California Deserts by W. Storrs Lee. This book is a highly readable chronicle of events in and around the Mojave and Colorado Deserts and in Death Valley since 1775. $5.95 at bookstores, or G.P. Putnam's Sona, 200 Madison Ave., N.Y. 16. A must for true desert peakers - Desert Peaks Guide, Part 1, covering the Mono, White, Inyo, Coso, and Argus Ranges. La Siesta Press. Box 516, Glendale, California $1.00 postpaid.

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