The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1877-05-03
The Bad Lands of White River.

DdkOt<t 1cIIllOIvs dllu SCictCnluS HCAly
to the great sand hills of Nebraska, lies a
sterile region, the soil of which is broken
up by projecting rocks, which give the
whole district q remarkably uninyiting
appearance. So unsuited is it for habita-
ton that the Indians, ages ago, gave it
the name of the Bad Lands, which has
immense difficulty to travel through this
region, the ravines and valleys into which
the rocks are worn being defiant obstacles
in themselves and rendering it easy to
lose ones way.
1t is to DIR. F. v. Hayden, now United
States Geologist, whose researches in the
Upper Missouri county extended from
1853 to 1866, that we are indebted for our
most definite scientific knowledge of this
region.
The surrounding country is prairie,
and the Bad Lands occupy valley about
100 miles long by thirty broad, which
seems to have sunk away from the surface
of the earth. The rocks are fragments of
what were once continuous strata, but
which are now broken into t0wer-like
columns; and it needs, as DR.. A. G. Peale
remarks, but little exercise of the imagin-
alton to fancy oneself in the streets of an
ancient city, whose inhabitants left behind
them spires, buttresses and shafts as mon
uments of their labor and genius.
N. De Girardin, French traveller,
gives the following account of visit to
the Bad Lands: accompanying one of
the biologists, l assembled a hill and en-
jOyed one of the most wonderful of sights
At the extremity of an immense plain,
rose tinted by the reflection of the setting
sun, there appeared to us an immense
city in ruins-a city surrounded by walls
and bastions, filled with palaces, gigantic
domes and monuments Of most striking
and fantastic architecture. At intervals,
upon soil white as snow, roee crumbling
castles of q brick rcd color, and pyra.
mids with sharp submits, capped with
shapeless masses, which seem to tremble
in the wind. In the center of this chaos
stood a gigantic specter-like column.
Descending into the valley, and passing
between two columns of antediluvian
architecture, we discover q vast amphi-
theater, surrounded by crumbling and
indented hills of rich yellow color, and
a confused mass of miniature mountains,
Of red and yellow clay, thrown without
order on soil so hard that the horses feet
make no impression upon it."
This desert, says DR.. Peale, is destitute
of vegetation. and the scanty supply OF
water is strongly alkaline, coating the
rocks with white crust, where it evap-
crates. There are no signs of life-n0t
bird, nor even an insect. The geologist
pursues his investigations surrounded by
bleak and barren dcsOlatiOn. II he is
there in midsummer, the sc0rching sun,
pouring down in the hundred defiles that
thread this painless waste, is reflected
back to him from the white or colOred
walls, unmitigated by q breath of air, or
the shelter of solitary shrub.
This extraordinary region is vast city
of the dead; and its spires and towers
are the monuments of most remarkable
extinct races of animals, whose remains
are strewn through the debris in the
greatest confusion. Thick layers of rock
are composed of petrifed bones, some
times perfectly preserved, and again re-
duced to powder. Vast numbers OF tur-
ties are found.
Some of the animals combined the pe.
culiarities of the bear, hog and cat. 9th
ers, eighteen feet in length, had points of
resemblance to the tapir, rhinoceros, hog
and horse, and still others represented .
race that lived on both flesh and vegeta-
bles, and yet chewed the cud like our
cloven-footed grazers. These curious an.
finals became extinct before the man.
moth and mastodon lived. When they
roamed over the country, Europe and
ASIA were represented by islands, scat.
tered over q wide expanse of ocean, and
our Atlantic seacoast extended back to the
mountains, and far up to the Mississippi
Valley. The region between the Rocky
Mountains and the Mississippi was COW
cred with great lakes, whose waters were
at first salt, but gradually became fresh:
Between these lakes were areas OF land
covered with vegetation tropical in its
lrxuriance and pTofusion. Through its
forests roamed herds Of singular animals.
In the bitter struggle of life, many spe-
cies and genera were blotted out, and their
remains washed into the lakes, to be i'm.
bedded in the then forming rocks. One
of our most eminent geologists thus beau-
tifully gives the picture of tertiary times:
.sMost of the continent exhibited an un-
dulating surface, rounded hills and broad
valleys, covered with forests grander than
any Of the present day, or wide expanses
of rich savannah, over which roaMed
countless herds Of animals, many of