The Yellowstone National Park: Historical and DescriptiveChittenden, Hiram Martin
History
The Yellowstone National Park: Historical and Descriptive
Chittenden, Hiram Martin
Yellowstone National Park
The party spent only the remainder of the day and the following
morning in the Upper Basin; but in that time saw seven of the
principal geysers in action, and gave them their present names.[AD]
They then passed down the river through the Middle and Lower Basins,
but stopped to examine only such curiosities as were close by the
river. Their rations were nearly gone, their lost companion was not
found, and the desire to tell what they had already seen was greater
than the desire to see more. They therefore made haste for home, and
on the evening of September 19th encamped where the Firehole and
Gibbon Rivers unite to form the Madison. From this point the party
journeyed steadily homeward, conversing on the expedition of the past
month, and planning how their great discovery might best be brought to
the attention of the world.
[AD] See list of geysers, Appendix A.
The news of this expedition created intense and wide-spread interest
throughout the country. Messrs. Washburn, Hedges, Trumbull, and
others, prepared numerous descriptive articles for the local Montana
papers, many of them among the best that have ever been written upon
the Park, and these were reproduced in every important paper in the
land. The _Helena Herald_, of October 27, 1870, only a month after the
return of the party, refers to the extraordinary interest aroused by
these articles, so unlike the sixty years' indifference which had
marked the history of this region.
These preliminary and hasty reports were followed by more studied
efforts. Lieutenant Doane's masterly report was completed December 15,
1870. Besides its intrinsic merit, it has the distinction of being the
first official report upon the Upper Yellowstone country. It passed
through the customary military channels and was finally sent to
Congress, February 24, 1871. Prof. S. F. Baird, of the Smithsonian
Institution, also presented the information gathered by Lieutenant
Doane to the Philosophical Society of Washington during the winter.
Messrs. Langford and Trumbull prepared entertaining magazine articles,
which, however, could not be gotten to press until the following May
and June. But Mr. Langford in the meantime did effective work from the
lecture stand. In Helena, Minneapolis, New York and Washington, he
told the story of what he had seen. In Washington, the Hon. James G.
Blaine, Speaker of the House, presided at the lecture, and in the
audience was Dr. F. V. Hayden, who was destined to play a prominent
part in the history of the Yellowstone Park.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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