GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 219 



Niagara, group. Here we began to encounter the masses of snow whose 

 melting supplied the cascade- streams. Up to their very edges, the satu- 

 rated ground, though not entirely hidden, was profusely ornamented with 

 the large glossy blossoms of white and yellow butter-cups, {Rammculus,) 

 many of which, indeed, as if tired of waiting for the removal of their 

 covering, had burst through the edges of the snow, where the drifts 

 were not more than two or three inches deep. But these impatient in- 

 dividuals had generally suffered, in their upward passage, and were 

 rarely as perfect as their more favored companions, either in flower or 

 in leaf; for, while vegetative growth had evolved heat enough to melt 

 a passage for the plant, yet contact with the suow had been sufficient to 

 check the development of its parts. In passing over the drifts, we found 

 many grasshoppers lying motionless and apparently frozen, in small pit« 

 in the surface from two to three inches deep, the snow having appar- 

 ently been melted from beneath them by the heat of their bodies. As 

 the sun got higher, however, they were soon thawed out, and became as 

 active as any of their race. It is possible that they found microscopic 

 plant- food upon the surface of the drifts, and had purposely come here 

 for it ; but it is more probable that they had been blown over from neigh- 

 boring patches of vegetation by the high winds which almost con- 

 stantly sweep over these crests. The high levels on either side of this 

 valley were entirely destitute of the high-growing plants of lower levels, 

 but presented a large variety of the Alpine plants, now mostly in full 

 blossom, showing a great profusion of white, blue, purple, crimson, and 

 yellow stars on their carpet of moss-like leaves. The crests of this part 

 of the range reach about 10,500 feet above the sea, running some 300 or 

 400 feet above what is here the apparent limit of pines and spruces. 

 From here it was evident that the range lying on the west side of 

 Pierre's Hole reached to about the same elevation, with no sharp peaks, 

 and mostly rounded surfaces on its eastern face. 



The walls of the valley along which we had made our unobstructed 

 way now approached each other, leaving a gap only fifty or sixty yards 

 in width, to reach which we climbed a sharp slope of stumbling rub- 

 bish, and then found ourselves on a narrow crest, overlooking an im- 

 mense caiion, the Great T^ton Canon, which separates the three higher 

 peaks from the mass of the mountain west and north of them, and finally 

 breaks out to the eastward toward Jackson's Hole. The descent from 

 this crest is very steep ; and, in dodging falling masses of rock, started 

 by those behind him, Mr. Bechler unfortunately got a severe sprain, 

 which troubled him for several days. Just to the left of this gap, the 

 crest of an immense snow-drift, from 80 to 100 feet high, reached up to 

 the rocks, and gave some of us an easy passage down. Of course, no pas- 

 sage with horses would have been possible at this point ; but I think it 

 could be made by striking directly up the ridge at the forks of West T6ton 

 Creek, about three miles west of our main camp, and turning down into 

 the Great CaQon about two hundred yards west of the gap just dCvScribed. 

 From the gap, it was evident that, the huge lateral spur of the southern 

 Teton must be crossed before we could reach the base of the central 

 peak. An attempt to pass around it would involve several miles of 

 travel in very deep canons. In these upper basins the snow had melted 

 much less than on the outer slopes ; and about a mile of it stretched be- 

 tween us and the spur aforesaid. On our right, and behind us, rose a 

 nearly vertical clift" of Quebec group sandstones and limestones, running 

 off southeasterly, past the southernmost Teton, to form the eastern face 

 of the mountain beyond. Beneath our feet was the Potsdam (?) quartzite, 

 while only metamorphics lay ahead of us. Bearing but a little to our 



