The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-09-12

Tho Yellowstone COmmissioners-Thc
Government Geological Expedition I'm
tho Rocky BIountains-Our Special
Reporters Latest Report.
General B. r. Cowen, Assistant Secretary
of the Interior and head of the Peace Com
mission to the Sioux Indians, with the other
Commissioners and some Indian hostages
have reached Chicago on route to Washington.
The Commissioners did not visit the Yellow
stone, as originally intended, on account of
the belligerent attitude of the Indians in that
quarter, those indignant red men having or
ganized for war to resist the building of the
Northern Pacific Railroad through their hunt
ing grounds The Commissioners, however,
pushed into the heart of the Indian country
on the Upper Missouri where they had some
powwows with the savages; but from Corinne,
Utah, to Helena, in Montana, they had
rough and dangerous trip. They were at
tackled by the Indians; they found it difficult
to gettransportation, as the mosquitoes (the real
Rocky Mountain mosquitoes) had driven away
horses and cattle. In fact, they say that in
crossing the Northern Pacific Railway route, on
the Upper Missouri, two of the nudes of the
commission were attacked by swarms of mosqui-
toes and killed. And these are tho mosquitoes
which they have, too, in the valley of the Vel
lowstone, so that hereafter the traveller to the
natural wonders of those Plutonic regions will
do we'll TO provide good strong mosquito nets,
not only for his own safety. but for the pro-
lection of his mules.
But while by beligerent redskins and
Zero cious mosquitoes General Cowen
and his Peace Commissioners were de-
TERED from visiting the valley of the
Upper Yellowstone we have a different
story to report Of the United States Surveying
Expedition among that lofty mass OF the Rocky
Mountains, from which the waters are drained
on the east by the Yellowstone and the other
head streams of the Missouri into the Gulf of
Mexico, and on the west by the Colorado into
the Gulf of California, and by the Snake
River into the Columbia, and thence into the
North Pacific Ocean. From q HERALD COM
Rocky Mountain, attending the United States
Geological Surveying Expedition in that quar-
ter, we publish this morning a graphic and
fascinating description of sizes 7iois Tetons"
rising from twelve to thirteen thousand feet
above the sea, and of tho wild and wonderful
scenery of those mountains, with their enormous
snow drifts and glaciers in July, from which
they may we'll be called the Alps Of the United
States. These Alps Of ours, however, extend
over an area which reduces that of the Euro
pean Alps to small corner in the compari-
son. although we have only here and there
peak which rises to the dignity of Mont Blanc.
Our correspondent of "Les Trois Ietons" tells
us of his passage (2Sth of july up canyon
by perpendicular walls of granite rising two
thousand feet from the stream, and Of roaring
cascades, and chasms filed with snow and ice,
and then of view in which, as far as he
could see huge fields of snow glistened under
the rising sun; and then of mountain lake,
ten thousand two hundred feet above the sea,
covered with ice, of dark green color, fifteen
feet thick, and so on to the end of his story.
| Such scenes as these Of ice and snow are still
refreshing to read of, though we have passed
the ordeal of an equatorial Summer which we
had feared had melted all the snow even in
the Rocky Mountains. But our correspondent
removes all doubts upon this point in his re-
port of the boundless fields of snow in and
around "Les 1fo's 7zt0ns."
-.ssTSS5'
Biuv Foffester-Ys He tho Nathan