From the Owl Buttes, where we encamped on the 7th of August, to the source of the Immel, a distance of about thirty-six miles, we traveled on the highlands. The surface was rugged, cut by deep ravines, and excessively difficult to pass with our vehicles. At every step we met volcanic remains. For two days our route offered on the right and left burnt hills, some of which were covered with lava and scoriae and had evidently been craters, whence volcanic matter had been ejected into the neighboring plain.
At the decline of the same day we were witnesses of a singularly beautiful phenomenon. The moon was surrounded by four circles; the first was of a beautiful azure, the second a rich purple, and the third white, while the fourth was obscure or black. In the midst of all these cir cles the queen of night shone brilliantly. The savages au
to the Yellowstone Park country extant. As is well known, the country around the sources of the Yellowstone was practically a terra incognita until 187o. The researches of later years have discovered several accounts of early visits by the traders and trappers, but nowhere is there anything more complete than this of Father De Smet. It would indeed have been fortunate if the park had been set apart on the lines he describes rather than as it was, for it would then have embraced much territory, particularly the Jackson Hole country, which, it is generally conceded, should have been a part of the park, and which is now largely included in recent forest reservations. This territory contains the sources of the three great river systems of the western portion of the United States-the Missouri, with its great tributary, the Yellowstone; the great tributary of the Columbia, the Snake river; and Green river, the principal tributary of the Colorado of the West. In a scrap-book containing a large number of manuscript maps prepared by Father De Smet during his travels, are four maps that embrace the sources of the Yellowstone. From these maps are taken the following names of features now familiar to every visitor to the Park: Gardiner river, Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone lake, Yellowstone falls, noted as 290 feet high, with an outline of the Grand Cafion below them, Firehole river, the various hot spring districts, Jackson lake, the Teton mountains, Two ocean Pass, Atlantic and Pacific creeks, and " Colter's Hell." On one of the maps occurs the following notation: " Great volcanic region about ioo miles in extent now in a state of eruption."