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 many laurels 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 spawning-time 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 
