Howell appealed the case to the U. S. District Court sitting at Cheyenne, Wyoming, and was released upon the technical ground that, as the prohibition against returning to the Park was merely an order from the Superintendent, and not explicitly authorized by the regulations of the Secretary of the Interior, the offense did not come within the purview of the law. This defect in the regulations has since been remedied and the conviction of Howell, therefore, notwithstanding his final release, has all the force of precedent. PART II.--Descriptive. CHAPTER I. BOUNDARIES AND TOPOGRAPHY. At the time when the bill creating the Yellowstone Park was before Congress there had been no detailed survey of that region, and the boundaries, as specified in the bill, were to some extent random guesses. The exploring parties of 1870 and 1871 had seen all the more important points of interest. To include these in the proposed reservation, the framers of the bill passed two lines due east and west, one through the junction of the Yellowstone and Gardiner Rivers, and one through a point ten miles south of the most southerly point of the Yellowstone Lake; and two lines due north and south, one through a point ten miles east of the easternmost point of Yellowstone Lake, and one through a point fifteen miles west of the most westerly point of Shoshone (then called Madison) Lake. The nearly rectangular area thus resulting was found to lie mainly in the north-west corner of Wyoming, with narrow strips, two or three miles wide, overlapping into the Territories of Montana and Idaho. The mean dimensions of the Reservation were 61.8 miles by 53.6 miles, giving an area of 3312.5 square miles. By presidential proclamation, dated September 10, 1891, a large area to the east and south of the Park was set apart as a Forest Reserve, under the provisions of an Act of March 3, 1891, and was placed in charge of the Superintendent of the Park. By this action the area reserved from settlement around the sources of the Yellowstone was increased to about 5,000 square miles. It should be remembered, however, that this additional reserve is not a direct creation by Act of Congress, and it therefore does not stand upon the same substantial footing as the original Reservation. The chief topographical features of the Park are as follows: DRAINAGE AREAS. Three great rivers receive the waters of the Yellowstone Park--the Yellowstone, the Missouri, and the Snake. The first two rivers are on the Atlantic slope; the third is on the Pacific slope. The areas drained by them are approximately: By the Yellowstone. 1,900 square miles. By the Missouri, 730 square miles. By the Snake, 682 square miles.