HISTORICAL AND OTHERWISE 83 



So outside the great thoroughfares of that early 

 day, with neither mineral nor pelts to tempt the 

 early explorers, it remained a terra incognita until 

 the year of our Lord, 1870. 



The first mention of the ''Yellowstone" is in 

 1798, in the manuscript of David Thompson, the 

 explorer, who was long connected with the British 

 fur trade in the northwest. He derived it from 

 the Mandan Indians, cognate to the Sioux, who 

 called it Mi-tsi-a-da-zi, ''Rock Yellow River." 

 Among the early voyagers it became Roche 

 Jaune, Yellow Rock, and hence Yellowstone. 



The first white man who ever saw the Yellow- 

 stone was David Coulter, a Missourian, who accom- 

 panied the expedition of Lewis and Clarke. When 

 they reached Fort Mandan on their return, Coulter 

 secured permission to leave the party and start 

 on a trapping expedition. After two years' 

 absence. from civilization, he was still enamored 

 of the wilderness and returned to it rather than 

 to the "settlements." 



He remained in the region of the forks of the 

 Missouri until 1807. Starting homeward with his 



