60 WAITING IN THE WILDERNESS 



During the Civil War armies sought to have 

 and to hold this gap. And to-day through this 

 pass commerce and communication flow in both 

 directions. It will endure for ages unless it be 

 uplifted or sunken beyond its present place; and so 

 long as it is where it is this useful open way will 

 suggest the romantic pirate story that gave it 

 a place in the sun. 



I camped through the Yellowstone in 1891 and 

 was out with a geologist who showed me records 

 of pirates, glaciers, and volcanoes. The Con- 

 tinental Divide in Yellowstone did not look like 

 I thought a continental divide should. It was 

 low, nearly flat, mostly smooth, and forest cov- 

 ered. I crossed it several times without knowing 

 that it was a divide. At two or three places 

 there are "Two-Ocean Ponds" shallow, water- 

 filled depressions, each with two outlets, the 

 water from the west end going to the Pacific 

 Ocean and that from the east to the Atlantic. 



The Yellowstone River did a lively piece of 

 piracy in capturing not a river but Yellowstone 

 Lake. In seizing the water of this lake the 

 Yellowstone River cut through a rhyolite plateau 

 and formed the glorious Yellowstone canon. 

 This brilliantly coloured canon has in it one of 

 the wildest of waterfalls. The Indians called 

 this country the Top of the World. Yellowstone 

 Lake, at an altitude of about 7,800 feet, is some- 



