THE STORY OF A STRANGE LAND. 263 



United States Geologist, sent out a party for syste- 

 matic exploration. The Hayden party came up 

 from Colorado on horseback, through dense and 

 tangled forests, across mountain torrents, and over 

 craggy peaks. The story of this expedition has 

 been most charmingly told by its youngest mem- 

 ber, another John Coulter. Professor Coulter was 

 the botanist of the survey, and he won the first of 

 his manyjaurels on this expedition. In 1872, acting 

 on Hayden's report, Congress took the matter in 

 hand, and set apart this whole region as a " public 

 park or pleasuring ground for the benefit and en- 

 joyment of the people," and such it remains to 

 this day. 



But while only of late this region has had a 

 public history, the long-forgotten years between 

 the Glacial period and the expedition of Lewis 

 and Clark were not without interest in the history 

 of the trout. For all these years the fishes have 

 been trying to mount the waterfalls in order to 

 ascend to the plateau above. Year after year, as 

 the spawningrtime came on, they leaped against 

 the falls of the Gardiner, the Gibbon, and the Fire- 

 hole Rivers, but only to fall back impotent in the 

 pools at their bases. But the mightiest cataract of 

 all, the great falls of the Yellowstone, they finally 

 conquered ; and in this way it was done, not by 

 the trout of the Yellowstone River, but by their 

 brothers on the other side of the Divide. These 

 followed up the Columbia to the headwaters of the 

 Snake River, its great tributary, past the beautiful 

 Heart Lake, and then on to the stream now called 

 Pacific Creek, which rises on the very crest of the 



