country.

[Illustration: Very much yours D.G. Folsom]

As early as the year 1866 I first considered the possibility of
organizing an expedition for the purpose of exploring the Upper
Yellowstone to its source. The first move which I made looking to this
end was in 1867 and the next in 1868; but these efforts ended in nothing
more than a general discussion of the subject of an exploration, the
most potent factor in the abandonment of the enterprise being the
threatened outbreaks of the Indians in Gallatin valley.

The following year (1869) the project was again revived, and plans
formed for an expedition; but again the hostility of the Indians
prevented the accomplishment of our purpose of exploration. Hon. David
E. Folsom was enrolled as one of the members of this expedition, and
when it was found that no large party could be organized, Mr. Folsom and
his partner, C.W. Cook, and Mr. Peterson (a helper on the Folsom ranch),
in the face of the threatened dangers from Indians, visited the Grand
Cañon, the falls of the Yellowstone and Yellowstone lake, and then
turned in a northwesterly direction, emerging into the Lower Geyser
basin, where they found a geyser in action, the water of which, says Mr.
Folsom in his record of the expedition, "came rushing up and shot into
the air at least eighty feet, causing us to stampede for higher ground."

Mr. Folsom, in speaking of the various efforts made to organize an
expedition for exploration of the Yellowstone says:

In 1867, an exploring expedition from Virginia City,
Montana Territory, was talked of, but for some unknown