SHOULD WE ALSO FLOOD THE SISTINE CHAPEL SO TOURISTS CAN GET NEARER THE CEILING? ARTH began four billion years ago and Man two million. The Age of Technology, on the other hand, is hardly a hundred years old, and on our time chart we have been generous to give E it even the little line we have. It seems to us hasty, therefore, during this blip of time, for Man to think of directing his fascinating new tools toward altering irrevocably the forces which made him. Nonetheless, in these few brief years among four billion, wilderness has all but disappeared. And now these: 1) There are proposal still before Congress to “improve” Grand Canyon. If they succeed, two dams could back up artificial lakes into 93 miles of canyon gorge.This would benefit tourists in power boats, it is argued, who would enjoy viewing the canyon wall more closely. (See headline.) Submerged underneath the tourists would be part of the most revealing single page of earth’s history. The lakes would be as deep as 600 feet (deeper for example, than all but a handful of New York buildings are high) but in a century, silting would have replaced the water with that much mud, wall to wall. There is no part of the wild Colorado River, the Grand Canyon’s sculptor, that would not be maimed. Tourist recreation, as a reason for the dams, is in fact an afterthought. The Bureau of Reclamation, which has backed them, calls the dams “cash registers.” It expects they’ll make money by sale of commercial power. They will not provide anyone with water. 2) In Northern California, during only the last 115 years, nearly all the private virgin redwood forests have been cut down. Where nature’s tallest living things have stood silently since the age of the dinosaurs, there is, incredibly, argument against a proposed park at Redwood Creek which would save a mere 2% of the virgin growth that was once there. For having cut so much and taken the rest for granted, the lumber companies are eager to get on with business. They see little reason why they should not. The companies have said tourists want only enough roadside trees for the snapping of photos. They offered to spare trees for this purpose, and not much more. The result would remind you of the places on your face you missed while you were shaving. 3) And up the Hudson, there are plants for a power complex — a plant, transmission lines, and a reservoir near and on Storm King Mountain—effectively destroying one of the last wild and