"After this obstacle had thus forced us over on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains, an effort was made to recross and reach the district in question, but although it was June, the immense body of snow baffled all our exertions, and we were compelled to content ourselves with listening to marvellous tales of burning plains, immense lakes, and boiling springs, without being able to verify these wonders. I know of but two white men who claim to ever have visited this part of the Yellowstone Valley--James Bridger and Robert Meldrum. The narratives of both these men are very remarkable, and Bridger, in one of his recitals, described an immense boiling spring, that is a perfect counterpart of the Geysers of Iceland. As he is uneducated, and had probably never heard of the existence of such natural marvels elsewhere, I have little doubt that he spoke of that which he had actually seen. The burning plains described by these men may be volcanic, or, more probably, burning beds of lignite similar to those on Powder River, which are known to be in a state of ignition.... Had our attempt to enter this district been made a month later in the season, the snow would have mainly disappeared, and there would have been no insurmountable obstacles to overcome. "I cannot doubt, therefore, that at no very distant day the mysteries of this region will be fully revealed, and though small in extent, I regard the valley of the upper Yellowstone as the most interesting unexplored district of our widely expanded country." Ten years after Colonel Raynolds's unsuccessful attempt to solve the problem of the Yellowstone, a small party under Messrs. Cook and Folsom ascended the river to the lake, and crossed over the divide into the Geyser Basin of the Madison. No report, we believe, was published of their discoveries. At any rate, the general public were indebted for their first knowledge of the marvels of this region to an expedition organized in the summer of 1870 by some of the officials and leading citizens of Montana. This company, led by General Washburn, the Surveyor-General of the Territory, and accompanied by a small escort of United States cavalry under Lieutenant G. C. Doane, left Fort Ellis toward the latter part of August, and entered the valley of Yellowstone River on the 23d. During the next thirty days they explored the cañons of the Yellowstone and the shores of Yellowstone Lake; then crossing the mountains to the headwaters of the Madison, they visited the geyser region of Firehole River, and ascended that stream to its junction with the Madison, along whose valley they returned to civilization, confident, as their historian wrote, that they had seen "the greatest wonders on the Continent," and "convinced that there was not on the globe another region where, within the same limits, nature had crowded so much of grandeur and majesty, with so much of novelty and wonder."