APPENDIX E.
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The Yellowstone National Park.
“YELLOWSTONE.”
Lewis and Clark passed the first winter of their famous trans-continental expedition among the Mandan Indians, on the Missouri River, sixty-six miles above the present capital of North Dakota. When about to resume their journey in the spring of 1805, they sent back to President Jefferson a report of progress and a map of the western country based upon information derived from the Indians. In this report and upon this map appear for the first time, in any official document, the words “Yellow Stone” as the name of the principal tributary of the Missouri.
It seems, however, that Lewis and Clark were not the first actually to use the name. David Thompson, the celebrated explorer and geographer, prominently identified with the British fur trade in the North-west, was among the Mandan Indians on the Missouri River from December 29, 1797, to January 10, 1798. While there he secured data, mostly from the natives, from which he estimated the latitude and longitude of the source of the Yellowstone River. In his original manuscript journal and field note-books, containing the record of his determinations, the words “Yellow Stone” appear precisely as used by Lewis and Clark in 1805. This is, perhaps, the first use of the name in its Anglicised form, and it is certainly the first attempt to determine accurately the geographical location of the source of the stream. [A]
[A] Thompson’s estimate:
Latitude, 43° 39’ 45” north.
Longitude, 109° 43’ 17” west.
Yount Peak, source of the Yellowstone (Hayden):
Latitude, 43° 57’ north.
Longitude, 109° 52’ west.
Thompson’s error:
In latitude, 17’ 15”.
In longitude, 8’ 43”, or about 21 miles.