= 34 



A' A TURE 



{jfan. lo, 1884 



magnificent snowy range of the Wind River Mountains, 

 in which three true glaciers were observed — the first known 

 to occur east of the Coast Range of the Pacific border. 

 The Report of these various surveys and of palveonto- 

 logical and natural history researches connected with 

 previous explorations is divided into two parts. Taking 

 the second part first, we have a stout volume of some 

 500 pages with 80 plates, besides figures, maps, and 

 sections entirely devoted to the Yellowstone Park. A 

 good deal has been written on the wonders of this region, 

 chiefly in previous Reports of Dr. Hayden's Surveys, and 

 sometimes in considerable detail, as, in Professor Com- 

 stock's Report, accompanying Captain Jones' Recon- 

 naissance published in 1875. But no such minutely 

 circumstantial narrative has ever appeared as that now 

 issued. 



An exceedingly erroneous general impression is con- 

 veyed by the word " Park '' which has been applied to 

 this region and which has received the sanction of an 

 Act of Congress. The tract comprises an area of 

 upwards of 3500 square miles, most of it being forest 

 covered and of a rugged mountainous character. Some 

 of the peaks rise to between 10,000 and 11,000 feet above 

 the sea. Between the lower ridges, open glades of park- 

 like woodlands make one half forget for a while the great 

 altitude and remoteness of the region, till the true 

 character of the place is recalled by some pine-trunk 

 deeply scored by a passing bear or by a herd of 

 " antelopes " or an occasional " elk " scampering across the 

 sunshine into the gloom and silence of the surrounding 

 forest. Through this region, the Yellowstone Ri\er and 

 its tributaries, draining a series of lakes, flows northward 

 till it enters a profound canon in which, at times unseen 

 and unheard, it chafes the feet of volcanic precipices 

 until, emerging amid a series of glacier moraines, it 

 passes out of the " Park " into the Territory of Montana. 

 The Monograph of this deeply interesting region now 

 published by Dr. Hayden is composed of three unequal 

 sections. The first of these, by Mr. W. H. Holmes, 

 treats of the general geology. It is no disparagement to 

 the author to saj- that the most valuable part of his 

 Report is to be found in his admirable sketches. He adds 

 some interesting particulars, indeed, to what was already 

 known of the geology of the district. For example he 

 has worked out in greater detail the structure of Cinnabar 

 Mountain which forms so striking a feature in the ascent 

 of the Yellowstone above the second canon, likewise the 

 geology of the remarkable volcanic plateau of which one 

 sees a section from the camping ground at the Mamnioth 

 Hot Springs. The beautiful unconformability under the 

 sheet of rhyolite which forms so impressive a feature in 

 that landscape stands out with admirable clearness in 

 Mr. Holmes' drawings. Evidence is supplied of the 

 diminution of the Yellowstone Lake. A reference, 

 tantahzingly brief, to the interesting glacial problems of 

 the district concludes this short Report. The author 

 was too well and busily employed with his pencil to find 

 time for much independent geological observation. But 

 it is matter for hearty congratulation that before he was 

 n"io\'ed away into the vaster domain of the Grand Canons 

 of the Colorado, where he has since done such service to 

 the United States Geological Survey, he was enabled to 

 spend long enough time in the Yellowstone region to 



produce the series of pictoral illustrations which enrich 

 Dr. Hayden's final Report. His trained eye and power 

 of rapid and accurate sketching greatly contributed to the 

 perfection of the map of the Park. 



The second and by much the longest section of the book 

 is devoted to the Hot Springs of the Yellowstone Park, and 

 is from the pen of Dr. A. C. Peale, who spent about two 

 months in the district making detailed observations of 

 the geysers and other thermal waters. He describes more 

 than 2000 springs and seventy-one geysers, and illustrates 

 his descriptions with so numerous a series of plates that 

 every minute detail and \ariety of form in the gejsers and 

 sinter accumulations is vividly brought under the eye. Dr. 

 Hayden justly remarks that this preliminary work ought 

 never again to be necessary. Short of an actual inspection 

 of the geysers and basins themselves, nothing could give a 

 clearer idea than these plates do of the extraordinary forms 

 assumed by the deposits from the thermal waters. The 

 strange coralloid and sponge-like aggregations are excel- 

 lently depicted in lithographs which have obviously been 

 reproduced from photographs. Dr. Peale's Monograph 

 consists of three parts, the first devoted to a descrip- 

 tion of the geysers and thermal springs ; the second 

 to an account of the principal gej'ser regions of the 

 world for purposes of comparison ; the third to thermo- 

 hydrology, in which he discusses the general characters 

 of thermal waters, their chemistry and deposits, and 

 the theories of geyser action. The premature dis- 

 banding of the Survey pre\ented the completion of this 

 essay on the scale originally intended. But Dr. Peale 

 may be congratulated on having made a most useful 

 addition to the literature of the subject. Not the least 

 of its merits is the copious bibliography which is given in 

 an Appendix. 



The third section of the volume, by that able carto- 

 grapher Mr. H. Gannet, deals «ith the topograph)-, and 

 gives an interesting resume of the various reconnaissances 

 and surveys which have resulted in the present detailed 

 map of the Yellowstone Park. 



The other volume, forming Part I. of the Reportfor 1878 

 is divided into two sections. One of these, relating to 

 geology and palaeontology, contains a series of Reports by 

 Dr. C. A. White on the invertebrate palseontology of the 

 Western States and Territories from the Carboniferous to 

 the Tertiary rocks, and is accompanied by forty-two Plates 

 of Fossils. Some sections have a special interest, in par- 

 ticular that in which the author discusses the fossils 

 of the much disputed Laramie group, and sustains his 

 previously expressed opinion that this group should be re- 

 garded as transitional between the Cretaceous and Eocene 

 formations of the West. The abrupt cessation of the 

 Survey, by depriving Dr. White of an opportunity of com- 

 pleting some of his work by further collect ion, has materially 

 crippled him in the preparation of these further contri- 

 butions to a subject which he has already done so much to 

 elucidate. 



Mr. Orestes St. John supplies a report on the Wind 

 River District Basin, and Mr. Scudder reprints with 

 additions and alterations the report on the Tertiary Lake- 

 basin of Florissant, Colorado, which has already appeared 

 in the Bulletin of the Survey, and which made known th(> 

 extraordinary abundance of insect remains preserved in 

 the lacustrine deposits of that locality. 



