Between the springs all along the border of the lake were small craters from which issued hot steam or vapor, besides which there were many cold craters.  Along the edge of the lake, out in the water from ten to thirty feet from the shore are to be found springs with the water bubbling up a few inches above the surface.  None of the springs in this locality appeared to be very strongly impregnated with sulphur.  Some of the incrustations on the beach are as white and delicate as alabaster.  These are the springs which we observed on September 5th from our camp on the eastern shore of the lake.

Our explorations of the Yellowstone will cease at this point, and to-morrow we start in our search for Firehole Basin.  Our journey around Yellowstone lake in close proximity to the beach is doubtless the first ever attempted; and, although it has been attended with difficulty and distress, these have been to me as nothing compared with the enjoyment the journey has afforded, and it is with the greatest regret that I turn my face from it homewards.  How can I sum up its wonderful attractions!  It is dotted with islands of great beauty, as yet unvisited by man, but which at no remote period will be adorned with villas and the ornaments of civilized life.  The winds from the mountain gorges roll its placid waters into a furious sea, and crest its billows with foam.  Forests of pine, deep, dark and almost impenetrable, are scattered at random along its banks, and its beautiful margin presents every variety of sand and pebbly beach, glittering with crystals, carnelians and chalcedony.  The Indians approach it under the fear of a superstition originating in the volcanic forces surrounding it, which amounts almost to entire exclusion.  It possesses adaptabilities for the highest display of artificial culture, amid the greatest wonders of Nature that the world affords, and is beautified by the grandeur of the most extensive mountain scenery, and not many years can elapse before the march of civil improvement will reclaim this delightful solitude, and garnish it with all the attractions of cultivated taste and refinement.

Strange and interesting as are the various objects which we have met with in this vast field of natural wonders, no camp or place of rest on our journey has afforded our party greater satisfaction than the one we are now occupying, which is our first camp since emerging from the dense forest.  Filled with gloom at the loss of our comrade, tired, tattered, browned by exposure and reduced in flesh by our labors, we resemble more a party of organized mendicants than of men in pursuit of Nature’s greatest novelties.  But from this point we hope that our journey will be comparatively free from difficulties of travel.

Mr. Hauser’s experience as a civil engineer has been an invaluable aid in judging of the “lay of the land,” and so in giving direction to our party in its zig-zag journeying around the lake.  In speaking of this, Hauser says that he thinks that I have a more correct idea of mountain heights, distances and directions, and can follow a direct course through dense timber more unerringly than any man he knows, except James Stuart—­a compliment which I accept most graciously.  Some of our party declare that they would have had no expectation of finding their way back to camp, if they had ventured into the forest in search of Mr. Everts.