When I arose in the morning, clouds of vapor seemed like a dense fog to overhang the springs from which frequent reports or explosions of different loudness, constantly assailed our ears. I immediately proceeded to inspect them, and might have exclaimed with the Queen of Sheba, when their full reality of dimensions and novelty burst upon my view, “The half was not told me.”
From the surface of a rocky plain or table, burst forth columns of water, of various dimensions, projected high in the air, accompanied by loud explosions, and sulphurous vapors, which were highly disagreeable to the smell. The rock from which these springs burst forth was calcarious [sic], and probably extends some distance from them beneath the soil. The largest of these wonderful fountains projects a column of boiling water several feet in diameter to the height of more than one hundred and fifty feet—in my opinion; but in declaring that it could not be less than four times that distance in height—accompanied with a tremendous noise. These explosions and discharges occur at intervals of about two hours. After having witnessed three of them, I ventured near enough to put my hand into the water of its basin, but withdrew it instantly, for the heat of the water in this immense cauldron was altogether too great for comfort, and the agitation of the water, the disagreeable effluvium continually exuding, and the hollow unearthly rumbling under the rock on which I stood, so ill accorded with my notions of personal safety, that I retreated back precipitately to a respectful distance. The Indians who were with me were quite appalled, and could not by any means be induced to approach them. They seemed astonished at my presumption in advancing up to the large one, and when I safely returned, congratulated me on my “narrow escape.”—They believed them to be supernatural, and supposed them to be the production of the Evil Spirit. One of them remarked that hell, of which he had heard from the whites, must be in that vicinity. The diameter of the basin into which the water of the largest jet principally falls, and from the centre of which, through a hole in the rock of about nine or ten feet in diameter, the water spouts up as above related, may be about thirty feet.—There are many other smaller fountains, that did not throw their waters up so high, but occurred at shorter intervals. In some instances, the volumes were projected obliquely upwards and fell into the neighboring fountains or on the rock or prairie. But their ascent was generally perpendicular, falling in and about their own basins or apertures. These wonderful productions of nature are situated near the centre of a small valley, surrounded by pine covered hills, through which a small fork of the Madison flows. Highly gratified with my visit to these formidable and magnificent fountains, jets, or springs, whichever the reader may please to call them, I set out after dinner to rejoin my companions. Again we crossed the Piny Woods and encamped on the plains of Henry’s Fork.[102]
Ferris not only wrote the foregoing account in his journal, but his sense of its importance impelled him to expand it for publication. He submitted his “Life in the Rocky Mountains” to several papers. Subsequently the narrative appeared in the Literary Messenger of Buffalo, New York, in issues running during the early forties. The scholarly observations of Mr. Ferris were reprinted in The Wasp, a Mormon organ of Nauvoo, Illinois, on August 13, 1842. It was the best article prepared before 1870. Henceforth, the lack of knowledge about Yellowstone must be charged to common indifference and skepticism. The facts had all been well attested but slenderly disseminated.
Foremost among all trapper visitations in point of extent and accuracy were those of Osborne Russell. Between 1835 and 1839 he accompanied three specific Yellowstone expeditions. The first party, which numbered twenty-four, was organized at Fort Hall in June, 1835. Instructions directed them to proceed to Yellowstone Lake and return, hunting and trapping the intervening territory. Their route of travel was northeast to Jackson Hole, thence into the Absarokas. No one in the group had ever entered Yellowstone until July 28, when they descended the mountains into what they called “Secluded Valley.”
The point of ingress was probably the upper Lamar drainage. There they encountered a small band of friendly Snake Indians, rich in pelts which they sold for a “song.” Mr. Russell revealed an unerring instinct of appreciation for the area in his first and subsequent visits. Said he:
We stopped at this place and for my own part I almost wished I could spend the remainder of my days in a place like this, where happiness and contentment seemed to reign in wild, romantic splendor, surrounded by majestic battlements which seemed to support the heavens and shut out all hostile intruders.[103]
W. S. Chapman
Trapper observing Riverside Geyser.
While his impression of security was to prove incorrect the reaction to grandeur was wholly sustained.
One trapper was lost, and after a futile search they reluctantly crossed the Yellowstone River. Their next camp was in Gardner Hole, named for trapper Johnson Gardner, formerly an Ashley employee, who had worked the area several years before. Russell’s party then crossed the Gallatins and joined Jim Bridger’s company in making a stand against the marauding Blackfeet.
The next season found Russell attached to Bridger’s party and again on his way to Wonderland. They entered from the southeast along Yellowstone River. By mid-August they reached the lake. Two weeks were spent in trapping the lake and Gardner Hole streams. Russell again expressed his unqualified partiality for this region.