Read complete books and articles on: Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone National Park - 2,219,791 acres (899,015 hectares), the world's first national park (est. 1872), NW Wyo., extending into Montana and Idaho. It lies mainly on a broad plateau in the Rocky Mts., on the Continental Divide, c.8,000 ft (2,440 m) above sea level, surrounded by mountains from 10,000 to 14,000 ft (3,048–4,267 m) high. The area, a huge craterlike volcanic basin, is a

Volcanic activity is evidenced by nearly 10,000 hot springs, 200 geysers, and many vents and mud pots. The more prominent geysers are unequaled in size, power, and variety. Old Faithful, the best known although not the largest, erupts every 40 to 70 min and shoots c.11,000 gal (41,640 liters) of water some 150 ft (46 m) high. Mammoth Hot Springs, a series of five terraces with reflecting pools, continues to grow as residue from the mineral-rich water is deposited.

The park also has petrified forests, lava formations, and the "black glass" Obsidian Cliff. Eagle Peak, 11,370 ft (3,466 m), is the highest point. Yellowstone Lake, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, and waterfalls are notable features on the Yellowstone River, which crosses the park. The park has a wide variety of flowers and other plant life. Bears, mountain sheep, elk, bison, moose, many smaller animals, and more than 200 kinds of birds inhabit Yellowstone, which is one of the world's largest wildlife sanctuaries. Fires in 1988 burned about 36% of the park, but animal and plant life rebounded quickly, as the nutrient influx in the ash nourished the soil.

See also National Parks and Monuments, table.

See J. Muir, Yellowstone National Park (1979); B. T. Scott, The Geysers of Yellowstone (rev. ed. 1986); G. Wuerthner, Yellowstone & the Fires of Change (1988).

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6 of the Best Books and Articles on: Yellowstone National Park

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Yellowstone and the Great West: Journals, Letters, and Images from the 1871 Hayden Expedition » Read Now
by Marlene Deahl Merrill. 322 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

A daily record of Ferdinand Hayden's historic scientific expedition trough Utah, Idaho, & Montana Territories to the Yellowstone Basin.
2.

Yellowstone: The Creation and Selling of an American Landscape, 1870-1903 » Read Now
by Chris J. Magoc. 270 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

Examines the American myths and late-Victorian values behind the movement both to preserve the Yellowstone wilderness and to extract its natural resources--codifying the ultimate American landscape.
3.

Myth and History in the Creation of Yellowstone National Park » Read Now
by Paul Schullery, Lee Whittlesey. 125 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
4.

History of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (1937) » Read Now
by Arthur David Howard. 161 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library
5.

The Discovery of Yellowstone Park: Journal of the Washburn Expedition to the Yellowstone and Firehole Rivers in the Year 1870 » Read Now
by Nathaniel Pitt Langford. 132 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

This Bison Books edition of Nathaniel P. Langford's journal brings back into print one of the principal sources of information on the exploration of the Yellowstone region and its establishment as America's first national park.
6.

Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks (Chap. 3 "Before the Wilderness: Native Peoples and Yellowstone" and Chap. 4 "First Wilderness: America's Wonderland and Indian Removal from Yellowstone National Park") » Read Now
by Mark David Spence. 190 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

This book examines the ideal of wilderness preservation in the United States from the antebellum era to the first half of the twentieth century, showing how the early conception of the wilderness as the place where Indians lived (or should live) gave way to the idealization of uninhabited...
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This book examines the ideal of wilderness preservation in the United States from the antebellum era to the first half of the twentieth century, showing how the early conception of the wilderness as the place where Indians lived (or should live) gave way to the idealization of uninhabited wilderness. It focuses on specific policies of Indian removal developed at Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Glacier national parks from the early 1870s to the 1930s.
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