34 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1898. 



contact with the whites. Rattlesnakes abound in Oregon, and 

 the Indians of the old days used to inoculate pieces of flesh by 

 getting the snakes to bite, and then they dipped their arrow 

 points in the poison to give a death wound to their enemies. 



The Indians of that locality buried their dead for generations 

 on an island in the river, which is covered with a multitude of 

 skeletons of bodies placed there on slight wooden platforms, 

 which have fallen, leaving the place a wilderness of skulls, bones 

 and battered sticks. 



I would advise anybody going to the Yellowstone to carry 

 materials for preserving flowers and grasses, of which the pro- 

 duction of the famous region is luxuriant and greatly varied, 

 from tropical growths of the hot midsummer to the little flowers 

 that flourish only alongside the ice and snow. While visitors 

 are not allowed to touch cultivated flowers, no interdict is placed 

 on the wild flowers and handsome grasses, and a splendid collec- 

 tion may easily be obtained. 



From the great fall of the Yellowstone River for twenty miles 

 the caiion winds in and out between high walls so steep and lofty 

 that from the bottom the stars can be seen at any part of the 

 brightest day. 



In the park is one of the most unique hothouses in the country. 

 It is a strong wooden building constructed over a hot spring, and 

 although in midwinter snow from fifteen to thirty feet deep buries 

 the building from sight, the spring is perennial and keeps the 

 temperature of the interior at summer heat, and the caretaker 

 in the spring finds the lettuce and other crops ready for salad 

 making, in spite of the snow on the roof. 



