Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1914-12-26
DAKOTA. SATURDAY. DECEMBER 26. 1914
IN THE BADlhNUS.
(BY HARRY Way

i
some fifty miles distant. To reach those
cloudlike looking hills one has to travel
through the rough, hilly country of the
Black Hills, the rolling valley lands
which lie beyond, and across the Chey-
enne River.
Then one enters strange gray land
where to be in harmony with their sur.
roundings, even the chipGunks take on
a lighter hue; land of st.a1ge, fantastic
scenery, with softly roun3el hilocks of
pink and white clays and tpires of gray
rock standing precipitcl .nd ruinous,
locking ike counti. VIZ sh has been
alive with inhabitants In me long past
time, but whose life has beer destroyed
and only the ruins ofits habita'ion left.
The hills and buttes have an air OF un-
reality and give one the impression that
the landscape is but painted scenery.
This is the Badlands of South Da-
kota. The first idea that you get is, that
surely here, some of the mighty forces
Of nature have been at work to upheave
the hills and cause the desolation that
surrounds on all sides. AS one contem-
plates the scenery it becomes evident
that but little disturbance of the earths
crust has occurred since the strata of
which those hills are formed were laid
down. Where well marked streaks of
coloration occur in the buttes, such
streaks may often be seen in horizontal
lines extending for long distances
through other hills separated from each
other by intervening valleys, and show
ing that it is the removal of the ground
between them that has left those Ellis
and buttes standing The sculptor of
the Badlands has been the ever acting
agent of erosion, the quiet wearing aw ay
of the land by rain and weather, acting
through long years and still in action,
and which will continue to act until the
Badlands, at some long future time
shall have vanished from the earth.
Were it only for the scenery, the Bad
lands would be INTEREST," ng, but they
have a deeper interest to the student OF
nature, for imbedded in those rocks an d
clays are the remains of life forms of an
age before man appeared upon the earth,
and record Of such animal life is often
there preserved in its skeleton forms
with remarkable completeness. Long
ages ago, animals such as the world Of
the present day knows not, we're buried
in the silt of which those hills were
formed, and their fossil i5maias can be
recovered in the positions IN which they
died. Many animals OF u ange shapes
lie there buried, where t. y lived and
died when the Bad Lalt5 were their
grazing and hunting groands in those
far away days. when the sun shone on
the earth as now, and Wien the lands
which now are rock cad clay, were
covered with vegetation
In those early days when the earth
was younger, it seems as though nature
had been building some Of her animals
on the Dreadnaught plan, so we'll equip
ped for struggle against their enemies
with means of offense and defense, that
looking at their fossil remains, one
might we'll think that they at least,
would perpetuate their species. Yet
they have passed away, and were it not
for these poor, stony, fossil remains,
have left no record upon this earth to
tell of their existence 10 the days when
they reigned supreme over their fellow
inhabitants of the country, where men
now take up their homesteads in these
valleys.
In the museums of the East, you may
see restoratons of these animals, but
they give the observer the impression
that they are but museum specimens.
Here in the Badlands, it is brought
home to you that they were once Lying
animals. One day while walking in the
Badands with a friend, struck the
fresh track of an animal; calling to my
friend, said, Hold on Doctor, here is
mountain lion track" he came back
and stood tor moment in silence, then
replied ave shall not meet that noun.
tain lion." The track was in rock, shar p
and distinct as when first made, but we
each knew that the track, fresh as it ap-
peared, had been made on day before
Man came on earth. Somehow, it
brought that day OF million years age,
very close to the day of latter age when
we stood there and looked at that foot
| print.
1t is only by staying awhile in the
Badlands that the significance of it all
may on some favorable moment come
to you. Over camp fire on a moon
light night, have seen those strange
weather worn buttes appear as Natures
monuments to the species of animal:
whose remains are entombed within
them, species which in the evolution oi
life forms have dropped out. and having
had their day on earth, have passed
away to return no more, and wondering
too, if man, whose cunning convolution.
of brain have secured for him dominion
over all the animal life of the presen
day, will in his turn vanish from tht
earth as these have done. Will thu
high development of the brain carry
with it the penalty of extinction, which
in the past has often been the lot o
species which were highly specialized
in the development of organs, or will i
enable him to successfully Withstand thu
conditions which lead to extinction