Oct 24, 1878] 



NA TURE 



667 



system of classification of the vegetable kingdom, an 

 outline of which we have already given to our readers 

 (vol. xviii. p. 646). The author brings to his work a mind 

 trained to great accuracy in the use of terms and in the 

 perception of morphological homologies. Great advan- 

 tage would ensue by the introduction into vegetable 

 morphology in this country- of a similar scientific ter- 

 minology. A. W. B. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 



[ The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 

 by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to return, or 

 to correspond zoith the writers of, rejected manuscripts. No 

 notice is taken of anonymous communications. 



[ The Editor urgently requests correspondents to keep their letters as 

 short as possible. The pressure on his space is so great that it 

 is impossible otherwise to ensure the appearance even oj com- 

 munications containing interesting and novel facts.'] 



American Exploration ^ 



North-7vestern Wyoming and Yellowstone Park 



During a portion of the period 1 870-4, the writer was 

 engaged in service as military engineer of the staff of the troops 

 serving in the geographical department of the Platte, U.S.A. 

 This business involved the accumulation of local geographical 

 information for the use of the troops who were constantly in 

 contact with hostile Indians. The most troublesome of these 

 were the Sioux, whose prowess in battle has since been shown to 

 the world in the story of the battie of the Little Big Horn — 

 the Custer massacre. 



Within the limits of this department were several dark spots 

 on the map marked "unexplored." One of these was the 

 north-western corner of Wyoming territory — a region of vital 

 interest to geographers, comprising, as it did, the crown of the 

 North American continent. There lay, wrapped in impene- 

 trable mystery, the trackless forest country where, in native lore, 

 the Great Spirit evidenced his eternal anger by spouting great 

 columns of water and smoke into the air far above the highest 

 tree-tops, by filling the air with strange rumbling sounds, and 

 Bad Medicine smells ; and by flinging the waters of the great 

 river into the bottomless depths of the Caiion of the Yellow 

 Stone. There lay the Lake Beautiful high on the mountain 

 side, from whose borders the Great Spirit puffed great 

 clouds of smoke. There were the strange mountains that 

 no man had ever entered, and whose existence Mas only 

 indicated on the best maps by a hazy line of feeble hachures. 

 Somewhere in that black and forbidding mass of the Unknown 

 Mountains were hidden the secrets of the sources of the Yellow- 

 stone, the largest feeder of the Missouri, as well as those of the 

 Columbig^nd the Snake. They were literally the " Unknown " 

 Mountains. They had been looked at in awe from a few spots 

 on the west and north, and from the south-east by a few tra- 

 vellers whom they had turned back from the glittering prize just 

 as it seemed within their grasp. They were unknown to the 

 Indians who lived on their border, with the exception of a hand- 

 full of outcasts from the Crows and Shoshonees, who, driven 

 from all intercourse with their fellows, were obliged to live in 

 the mountains, of which even they had acquired but a limited 

 and uncertain knowledge. Along their eastern border spread 

 out the hunting-grounds beyond compare of the Sioux, Arra- 

 pahoes, Cheyennes, and Crows, from whence no white man or 

 peaceful Indian could ever hope to return unless prepared to 

 cope with fearful odds. The mildest geologist on the planet 

 could not have entered that happy hunting-ground without 

 finding his own — without leaving his bones to whiten in a lonely 

 vale and his scalp to decorate the evening entertainment of some 

 vintutored child of nature. 



In the winter of 1872-73 General Ord, commanding the 

 department, informed me of his desire that what remained 

 of this dark spot in his field of operations should be cleared up, 

 and, if possible, that a passage-way be discovered between the 

 sources of Yellowstone and Wind Rivers. This would give 

 easy access to the recently-discovered Yellowstone Park 

 region, and very much simplify the question of the shipment 

 I See Nature, vol. xvlii. p. 315. 



of supplies to some of the posts in Montana. This was the 

 sole origin and animus of the expedition. 



At that time there had been published concerning the 

 Yellowstone Park region the following : — Hayden's ' ' Geo- 

 logical Report of 1871," Barlow and Heap's " Reconnais- 

 sance," and Doane's "Narrative." Of these, Hayden's work 

 was a rapid geological reconnaissance not based upon any topo- 

 graphical work worthy of mention ; Barlow and Heap were two 

 officers of engineers who made a military reconnaissance, in 

 which astronomical and topographical instruments were used by 

 trained observers ; while Doane, also an officer of the army, 

 simply recounted what he saw. It was also known that Hayden 

 had spent the season of 1872 in the immediate Park region, but 

 that he had not examined the country to the southward and east- 

 ward of it. Acting upon this information, and such as had 

 come to me through considerable hard service in the neighbour- 

 ing country, I decided to carry what explorers call a preliminary 

 triangulation from the surveyed region of the Union Pacific Rail- 

 road northward into the Yellowstone Park, there connecting 

 with the work of previous explorers. This route would take me 

 through the region infested by hostile Sioux, thence through 

 the unknown mountains from the eastward into the Park, and 

 thence recrossing somewhere in the neighbourhood of the sources 

 of the Yellowstone. I felt satisfied that, with a thoroughly 

 efficient pack- train, this could be accomplished before the early 

 snows rendered the mountains impassable. 



The event proved that if those pack mules had not been 

 handled with the utmost skill by the men in charge of them, 

 and had they not had the agility of squirrels, we should have 

 been turned back into a hornet's nest of redskins. 



I had no particular intention of reduplicating anybody's work, 

 but if such happened I am very glad of it. In the cau?e of 

 science a little duplication and reduplication are things not to 

 be sneered at. Dr. Hayden has been at work this very seasoni 

 reduplicating his own work in the Park and mine too, and I do 

 hope and pray, if there be anything erroneous or incomplete in 

 my work, that he may find and point it out. I am not afraid 

 of truth and right, even though it lay me prone in the dust. It 

 would be a pity indeed if, whh the sum of $75,000 and up- 

 wards at his disposal, with an outfit that has been the growth 

 of so many years of his own and other people's experience, 

 and with the only dangerous Indians in the whole region com- 

 pletely quiescent and humbled to the dust — it woidd be a pity 

 indeed if the sum of our knowledge of that wonderful region 

 were not very largely increased and many former errors 

 discovered. 



Exploring is at best imperfect work, so far as the survey, 

 which is its foundation feature, is concerned. Observations for 

 longitude with any known portable instruments are painfully 

 erratic unless there be abundant time ; angles taken with a light 

 shaky transit in a gale of wind from the summit of one moun- 

 tain to the most pointed aspects of the summits of others in 

 sight must make some very "holey" triangles; and yet this is 

 the best that has been done or can be done unless there be time 

 and money for a regular survey. 



With such an expedition as mine it would have been a sad 

 pity not to give trained scientists an opportunity to gather some 

 of the treasures'in our path, and so after careful selection and the- 

 advice of one of the most competent scientists in the country 

 (Prof. O. C. Marsh), I took with me some specialist observers. 

 They were excellent hard-working men, and have every 

 reason for being proud of their work. The sum of money 

 placed at my disposal for the w ork was $8,oco. 



Prof. Geikie ha=, I fear, been misled by the one-sided Report 

 of a Congressional Committee.^ This Report does not afford a 

 fair idea of the issues with which it deals. It conveys the im- 

 pression that the Engineer Department of the army had been 

 making efforts to absorb the Hayden survey. I was at that tune 

 in a position to know that such was not the case. 



It may be well to add that both by law and long-contmued 

 practice, a portion of the duties of the engineers of the Ame- 

 rican army comprises puUic explorations and surveys, and they 

 have always given die greatest possible assistance to specialist 

 observers, who can always do very much more and better work 

 when they have no cares other than those of observation and 

 reflection. 



Of Dr. Hayden I would like to say that few men deserve 

 more commendation for successfid labour than he. Where others 

 had always failed, he had succeeded in securing fr om Congi-ess 

 ' House Doc. Report 612, 43rd Cong, ist Session. 



