Proclamations Proc. 7265 Puebloan sites, and Southern Paiute sites. The monument also contains areas of importance to existing Indian tribes. In 1776, the Escalante-Dominguez expedition of Spanish explorers passed near Mount Trumbull. In the first half of the 19th century, Jedediah Smith, Antonio Armiijo, and John C. Fremont explored portions of this remote area. Jacob Hamblin, a noted Mormon pioneer, explored portions of the Shivwits Plateau in \177858 and, with John Wesley Powell, in the \177870s. Clar- ence Dutton completed some of the first geological explorations of this area and provided some of the most stirring written descriptions. Having tra- versed this area by wagon at the request of the territorial legislature, Shatlot Hall recommended it for inclusion within the State of Arizona when it gained Statehood in \1779\1772. Early historic sawmills provided timber that was hauled 70 miles along the Temple Trail wagon road from Mt. Trumbull down the Hurricane Cliffs to St. George, Utah. Ranch structures and corrals, fences, water tanks, and the ruins of sawmills are scattered across the monument and tell the stories of the remote family ranches and the lifestyles of early homesteaders. There are several old mining sites dat- ing from the 1870s, showing the history of mining during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The remote and undeveloped nature of the monument protects these historical sites in nearly their original context. The monument also contains outstanding biological resources preserved by remoteness and limited travel corridors. The monument is the junction of two physiographic ecoregions: the Mojave Desert and the Colorado Plateau. Individually, these regions contain ecosystems extreme to each other, rang- ing from stark, arid desert to complex, dramatic higher elevation plateaus, tributaries, and rims of the Grand Canyon. The western margin of the Shivwits Plateau marks the boundary between the Sonoran/Mojave/Great Basin fioristic provinces to the west and south, and the Colorado Plateau province to the northeast. This intersection of these biomes is a distinctive and remarkable feature. Riparian corridors link the plateau to the Colorado River corridor below, allowing wildlife movement and plant dispersal. The Shivwits Plateau is in an arid environment with between \1774 to \1778 inches of precipitation a year. Giant Mojave Yucca cacti proliferate in undisturbed conditions throughout the monument. Diverse wildlife inhabit the monu- ment, including a trophy-quality mule deer herd, Kaibab squirrels, and wild turkey. There are numerous threatened or endangered species as well, including the Mexican spotted owl, the California condor, the desert tor- toise, and the southwestern willow flycatcher. There are also candidate or sensitive species, including the spotted bat, the western mastiff bat, the Townsend's big eared bat, and the goshawk, as well as two federally recog- nized sensitive rare plant species: Penstemon distans and Rosa stellata. The ponderosa pine ecosystem in the Mt. Trumbull area is a biological resource of scientific interest, which has been studied to gain important insights re- garding dendroclimatic reconstruction, fire history, forest structure change, and the long-term persistence and stability of presettlement pine groups. Section 2 of the Act of June 8, \177906 (34 Stat. 225, 16 U.S.C. 43\177) authorizes the President, in his discretion, to declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest that are situated upon the lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States to be national monuments, and to reserve as a part thereof parcels of land, the limits of which in all cases
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