1949 | Environment
Environment
Philanthropist Laurance S. Rockeller signs over to the federal government more than 30,000 acres abutting Grand Teton National Park (see 1929). Within 5 years he will have built three lodges on the property that his father assembled at Jackson Hole, Wyo. Most of Jackson Hole National Monument will be added to the park next year, extending its size to 484 square miles (nearly 310,000 acres) of lakes (notably the 17-mile-long Jackson Lake on the Snake River), mountains (including 12 peaks 12,000 feet high), forests, meadows, and rivers abounding with herds of antelope, buffalo, and elk roaming wild, trout and other fish, where wildflowers begin blooming in spring even before the snow has melted.
A Sand County Almanac by the late Iowa-born forester-conservationist Aldo Leopold introduces the term "land ethic." Leopold died of a heart attack in April of last year at age 61 while helping a neighbor fight a brush fire; he had bought an abandoned farm in the Wisconsin Dells area in 1935, and his book will slowly gain recognition as a pioneer statement of ecological principles.
An earthquake at Ambato, Ecuador, August 5 registers 6.8 on the Richter scale and leaves 6,000 dead.