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[[underlined]] Middle & Upper Geyser Basins [[/underlined]]

[[underlined]] Aug. 7. [[/underlined]] Dutcher, Dr. Foster & I took our saddle horses & leaving the rest at camp made a trip to Upper Basin & back. Saw the Castle, Bee Hive, & Old Faithful spout & had a look at most of the other geysers.

Saw a little lizzard just over Excelsior, a little Scaloporus with 2 lateral stripes.

[[underlined]] Aug. 8. [[/underlined]] Packed up & returned to Norris Basin & on north to 8 miles of Mammoth Hot Springs & camped by Obsidian Creek. Passed the Beaver Lake & Obsidian Cliff. There is a big beaver house in one of the lakes and an old abandoned one in the lower lake. The best one is apparently occupied is built of sticks & rubbish in the lake, is about 10 feet wide & 4 or 5 feet high.

The Obsidian Cliffs are a section of a lava stream and in one place are almost pure obsidian of a mixed quality. It is in basaltic columns 50 to 100 feet high & from a foot to 4 or 5 feet through. Great chunks broken out are pure, black glass, but not transparent. To the north of us is a good sharp crater and a low flat one.

[[underlined]] Killed [[/underlined]] a Tamias luteoventris with a stone & saw and & tried to kill a lot of S. lateralis. Saw muskrat houses.

Camped & set traps by the edge of Willow Park.

A hard frost in morning, warm day. Midgets bad. a few horse flies, at in evening a few mosquitos.