6. AREA; TREES, FLOWERS, AND ANIMALS The Yellowstone Park is about equal in area to Delaware and Rhode Island combined. It has 3300 square miles. The average altitude is 7500 feet, while numerous peaks rise from 1000 to 3000 feet higher. Forests cover 85 per cent of the area. The largest parklike grassy space in this forested realm lies to the northeast of Mount Washburn, along the valleys of the Yellowstone and Lamar Rivers. This open space is about twenty-five miles long and from five to ten miles wide. The second largest area of grassy country, Hayden Valley, lies several miles to the north of Yellowstone Lake. Among other open spaces are Swan Lake Flat, Gibbon Meadows, Pelican Valley, and the small ragged areas around the Firehole Geyser Basin and Shoshone and Lewis Lakes. Among the trees are the quaking aspen, Douglas spruce, Engelmann spruce, and subalpine fir. The overwhelming proportion of these forests, however, consists of that interesting tree, the lodge-pole pine. It bears seed every year, beginning while young and small. It hoards its seeds by keeping its tightly closed cones. When fire sweeps through a forest of lodge-pole pine, it kills the trees and melts the sealing-wax of the cones, releasing the seeds. These seeds fall upon shadeless, ash-covered ground, under conditions most favorable to their germination and growth. The lodge-pole pine is Nature's selected agent for reforestation. The Yellowstone is a wild-flower garden. Wander where you will, you have the ever-new charm, the finishing touch, the ever-refreshing radiance of the wild flowers. Many are brilliantly colored. There are species of gentians, lupines, and pyrolas. The columbine is there in all its graceful beauty. The wild rose abounds. The Indian paintbrush perhaps is most abundant. The pentstemon is common. There are two species of orchids. The Yellowstone is the greatest elk-range in the world. It has a numerous grizzly-bear population. In fact the park has so large and varied a population of birds and wild animals that in most respects it is the greatest wild-life preserve in the world. 7. ENTRANCES To the Yellowstone wonderland there are four entrances. The Northern Pacific touches the northern entrance at Gardiner, Montana. This route is through the Gardiner Cañon to the Mammoth Hot Springs at Fort Yellowstone. The western entrance is from the Union Pacific at Yellowstone. This route takes the visitor directly to the central geyser basin of the Park. The eastern entrance is from the Burlington at Cody, the road passing the Shoshone Dam, crossing the Absaroka Range at Sylvan Pass, and making connection with the Park routes at the Lake Hotel. The southern entrance is from the Jackson Lake and Teton Mountain region and makes connection with the Park routes at the Thumb.