222 SIR WILLIAM KAMSAY 



about 8000 feet high, with wonderful canyons, tangled 

 forests and high rocky peaks rising overhead, it had 

 also the unique attraction of being the finest geyser 

 basin in the world, and these mysterious boiling foun- 

 tains and strange formations made it, at all costs, a 

 place to keep as far as possible in its natural state. 

 . All this is now familiar to the travelling public and to 

 the student of Baedeker, but in the early eighties the 

 roads were just being made, and though trips were 

 arranged to go through it there were only two hotels in 

 the course of an excursion that took six days. The 

 extra nights had to be spent in camp stations which 

 might be much overcrowded. 



These particulars even were not known in Montreal, 

 and the party were warned not to attempt the expedi- 

 tion. The party that started together included Pro- 

 fessor Liveing, Dr. Campion, Professor Fitzgerald and 

 the Ramsays. The latter were to meet Mrs. Ramsay's 

 brother, Patrick Buchanan, at Livingstone, which the 

 latest available information described as the station 

 nearest the park. The journey was not like the luxu- 

 rious American travelling of to-day. A landslide had 

 taken place on the C.P.R. line and traffic had tempor- 

 arily to go by the Great Lakes and then on by rail, 

 as it had always done till a short time before. The 

 commissariat department was not, however, quite so 

 easily reorganised, and for a day or two meals were 

 sketchy and peculiar. At one stop in the early morning 

 breakfast had to be taken at a mining camp about a 



