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nect nearly all the main points of interest within the park, the two old entrances at their termini, a new one through the Togwatee Pass and Wind River Valley, as proposed by Capt. W. A. Jones and Prof. Theo, B. Comstock in the interesting and valuable report of their explorations of 1873, and also my proposed one from near the forks of the Yellowstone to the Stillwater and navigable portion of the Yellowstone.

There is also necessity for speedy construction of a bridle-path through the pass from the Little Rosebud or Stillwater to the Clark's Fork and Soda Butte Mines, thence through the petrified forests, from Amethyst Mountain to Pelican Creek and foot of Yellowstone Lake, thence around it, with a branch to the Shoshone Lake, Geyser Basin, and old Faithful Geyser in the Upper Fire-hole Basin.

Also a very important bridle-path cut off by the route which I explored in 1875, from the forks of the Firehole via Gibbon's Fork. Cañon, Falls, Red Geyser Basin and Pass, and the falls of the Gardiner River, to the Mammoth Hot Springs. As of these roads and bridle-paths, only the miners (which I hope to arrange with them to construct and repair from the forks of the Yellowstone) cross the main river, no long, but many short, and some tolerably elevated, bridges will be required; bat some long causeways, especially in the miry, often nearly impassable, Upper Firehole Valley, much earth and little rock excavation. Timber and rock material usually abundant, and plain but substantial improvements, with the all-important practical selection of routes not neces sarily very expensive.

The necessity is evident for an appropriation to survey the boundaries, and continue explorations of the park, construction of these roads and bridle paths, and salary to insure a superintendent of energy and prac tical knowledge, and intrusted with discretionary power to under proper restrictions, manage these varied and important interests of the nation in the park.

An ambitious scientific signal-officer at the Mammoth Hot Springs or the Geyser Basin, or both, might, with little additional duty or expense, greatly aid science in solving many interesting and practical questions connected with the origin, character, duration, and decadence of each of these various classes of hot springs, the degree of their connection with the earth's internal fires, and their combined influence upon the climate of the park.

Notwithstanding the unavoidable great length of this first general report of the situation of the park since its legal existence, so important to its development and enjoyment is the opening of the Yellowstone River route, that I add a brief statement of what I deem practical facts in relation thereto.

We are now in the midst of serious and wide-spread Indian difficulties of cost and duration uncertain, but not the pending military necessities or final results, one of the most important of which is the speedy and permanent opening of the great natural Yellowstone route to the settled portions of Montana and the park, of the feasibility of which I have all confidence, for the following reasons:

The Missouri, as is well known, has been for many years navigated most of the season to Fort Benton, and all of it to Carroll.

From a personal knowledge of these streams many years ago-explorations of most of both of them in 1870 and 1875, boating the whole of the Yellowstone one way, part of it the other, and the balance upon horseback this season, the views of old trappers and bull-boat voyagers and of recent steamboat and military officers, basis for accurate conclusions certainly equaled by few, if any, and excelled by no man living—

I thus view their relative and actual merits for navigation. As compared with the Missouri above their junction, I deem the Yellowstone less crooked and muddy, with a somewhat narrower channel and much firmer banks, a more uniformly rapid current, but neither falls nor long and heavy rapids as has the Missouri below the gate of the mountains, usually carrying nearly as much water, and often, though not always, (from higher snowy mountains,) boating-stage later in the season; bluff and bar impediments to navigation more rocky and changeless, and hence soon better known, avoided, or permanently improved.

With moderate appropriation for removal of huge bowlders in the Wolf, Buffalo, and a few other rapids, and with the convenient rock and timber obstructing a few side shutes, powerful light draught steamboats, like the Josephine or Far West, can with safety and profit run early or quite all of the season to the mouth of the Big Horn.

Boats like the Rosebud could ascend to at least Baker's battle-field, and, with further improvements of the channel, and perhaps a smaller, yet serviceable, class of boats to the mouth of the Stillwater, if not, indeed, to Benson's Landing, at the very gate of the mountains, within sixty miles of the Mammoth Hot Springs in the park. This landing is but twenty-two miles by the open Bozeman Pass and excellent road from Fort Ellis at the head of the fertile Gallatin Valley, extending to the Three Forks of the Missouri and central point of the valuable mines and valleys of Montana. Hence, even liberal appropriations for improvement of the Yellowstone would be annually repaid to the Gov. ernment in the cost of transportation alone to an entire chain of forts, besides speedily assuring a border of prosperous settlements, (save upon the Crow reservation, and ere long that also,) and permanently solving the Indian question, through the very heart of their most beautiful and valuable game regious.

The permanent opening of this great natural route from the north and east, and the assured extension of the Northern Utah Road into at least the Snake River Valley from the south, will develop rivalry in excur si n-tickets from all the important cities of the nation, inviting teeming throngs of tourists to the bracing air, the healing bathing-pools, and matchless beauties of the "wonder-land."

Whether this national heritage of the unique, the beautiful, and the marvelous, somewhat aided by art and judicious management, is to thus become and ever remain the chosen resort of the student, the scientist, and the weary and worn pilgrims for health and pleasure of our own and other lands, or be given up, as heretofore, to the ruthless vandalism of all comers, depends upon the tendering or withholding of the fostering hand of the guardians of our nation's wealth and weal without delay.

P. W. NORRIS,
Superintendent of the Yellowstone National Park.

Hon. CARL SCHURZ,
Secretary of the Interior, Washington, D. C.

55 I

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The duties of this professorship are for the present discharged by the professor of history and ancient languages.

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