Monday, September 5.—­Lieutenant Doane continued to sleep all last night, making a thirty-six hours nap, and after dressing his thumb and taking an observation to determine our elevation, which we found to be 7714 feet above the ocean, we broke camp at nine o’clock.  After the train had got under way, I asked Mr. Hedges to remain behind and assist me in measuring, by a rude system of triangulation, the distance across the lake as well as to the Tetons; but owing to the difficulty we encountered in laying out a base line of sufficient length, we abandoned the scheme after some two hours of useless labor.

[Illustration:  SLATE SPECIMENS FROM CURIOSITY POINT.  SLATE CUP.  LEG AND FOOT.]

Following the trail of the advance party, we traveled along the lake beach for about six miles, passing a number of small hot sulphur springs and lukewarm sulphur ponds, and three hot steam jets surrounded by sulphur incrustations.  After six miles, we left the beach, and traveled on the plateau overlooking the lake.  This plateau was covered with a luxuriant growth of standing pine and a great deal of fallen timber, through which at times considerable difficulty was experienced in passing.  A little way from the trail is an alkaline spring about six feet in diameter.  We came to camp on the shore of the lake, after having marched fifteen miles in a southerly direction.  We have a most beautiful view of the lake from our camp.  Yesterday it lay before us calm and unruffled, save by the waves which gently broke upon the shore.  To-day the winds lash it into a raging sea, covering its surface with foam, while the sparkling sand along the shore seems to form for it a jeweled setting, and the long promontories stretching out into it, with their dense covering of pines, lend a charming feature to the scene.  Water never seemed so beautiful before.  Waves four feet high are rolling in, and there appear to be six or seven large islands; but we cannot be certain about this number until we reach the south shore.  From this point we cannot tell whether the wooded hills before us are islands or promontories.  On the shore are to be found large numbers of carnelians or crystallized quartz, agates, specimens of petrified wood, and lava pebbles or globules.  We have found also many curious objects of slate formation, resembling hollowed-out cups, discs, and two well formed resemblances of a leg and foot, and many other curious objects which Nature in her most capricious mood has scattered over this watery solitude.  All these seem to be the joint production of fire and water; the fire forming and baking them, and the water polishing them.  We called this place “Curiosity Point.”

If Mount Washington were set in the lake, its summit would be two thousand feet below the surface of the water.

To-night a conference of the party was held, to decide whether we would continue our journey around the lake, or retrace our steps and pass along the north side of the lake over to the Madison.  By a vote of six to three we have decided to go around the lake.  Mr. Hauser voted in favor of returning by way of the north side.  My vote was cast for going around the lake.