climb its bare, bald summit, and thence reported to us the
welcome news that he saw the beautiful lake that had been
the proposed object of our journey. By unanimous voice,
unsolicited by him, we gave the mountain a name that
through coming years shall bear onward the memory of
our gallant, generous leader. How little we then thought
that he would be the first to live only in memory. * * *
The deep forests of evergreen pine that embosom that lake
shall typify the ever green spot in our memory where shall
cluster the pleasant recollections of our varied experiences
on that expedition.

The question is frequently asked, "Who originated the plan of setting
apart this region as a National Park?" I answer that Judge Cornelius
Hedges of Helena wrote the first articles ever published by the press
urging the dedication of this region as a park. The Helena Herald of
Nov. 9, 1870, contains a letter of Mr. Hedges, in which he advocated the
scheme, and in my lectures delivered in Washington and New York in
January, 1871, I directed attention to Mr. Hedges' suggestion, and urged
the passage by Congress of an act setting apart that region as a public
park. All this was several months prior to the first exploration by the
U.S. Geological Survey, in charge of Dr. Hayden. The suggestion that the
region should be made into a National Park was first broached to the
members of our party on September 19, 1870, by Mr. Hedges, while we were
in camp at the confluence of the Firehole and Gibbon rivers, as is
related in this diary. After the return home of our party, I was
informed by General Washburn that on the eve of the departure of our
expedition from Helena, David E. Folsom had suggested to him the
desirability of creating a park at the grand cañon and falls of the
Yellowstone. This fact was unknown to Mr. Hedges,--and the boundary