In July 1897 an article appeared in the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institutiondescribing the various scientific studies that had been conducted at Crater Lake. J.S. Diller, an employee of the U.S. Geological Survey, discussed the various geographical and geological features of the lake. Among his glowing observations which prompted him to call for national park status for Crater Lake were:
Aside from its attractive scenic features, Crater Lake affords one of the most interesting and instructive fields for the study of volcanic geology to be found anywhere in the world. Considered in all its aspects, it ranks with the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, the Yosemite Valley, and the Falls of Niagara, and it is interesting to note that a bill has been introduced in Congress to make it a national park for the pleasure and instruction of the people. [36]
In January 1898 Frederick V. Colville, chief botanist of the Department of Agriculture, submitted a report on sheep grazing in the Cascade Range Forest Reserve. The investigation was performed in response to a request by the Department of the Interior for a disinterested study in view of the bitter controversy that had been raging over sheep grazing in the reserve. During the summer of 1896 several sheepherders and owners who were grazing sheep on the reserve were arrested under special instructions from the Attorney General of the United States. Later “these cases assumed the form of civil instead of criminal proceedings,” and on September 3 suit was brought in the U.S. District Court of Oregon against several owners to enjoin them from grazing within the reserve. In May 1897, the Attorney General, in view of the expected passage of the Forest Management Act, issued instructions that the injunction suits be discontinued. Thus, subsequent to the passage of the act and the formulation of comprehensive rules and regulations the investigation by Colville was initiated.
After studying the sheep grazing problem in the reserve, Colville rejected the two proposals that had been recommended as remedial measures–the total exclusion of sheep and the abolition of the reserve. Instead he proposed ten recommendations that should be taken at once “to save and perpetuate the timber supply and the water supply of middle Oregon:”
