473 



IIAIiXEY MOL'NTAIX KANGE. 



The ouly really mountainous iiart of the Black Hills is between Priugie 

 and Hill City, on the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad. Espe- 

 cially is the Harney Range, between Custer aud the latter place, of a 

 truly mountainous character. This district is a series of high, uaked 

 cliffs and crags, rising from 500 to 1,000 meters over the valleys, inter- 

 mixed with smaller hills. The looser slates and schists of the Archaau 

 age have worn and washed awaj^, leaving the harder granite rocks 

 standing out as gigantic prongs of the most fantastic shapes. lu mauy 

 cases the streams have hollowed out deep ravines and gulches. Where 

 the granite rocks are less common broad valleys have been formed, 

 which are often called " parks.'' The most important are Custer Park 

 around the upper part of French Creek, Dodge Park around the heads 

 of Red Canyon Creek, and Elk Prairie on the Upper Sirring Creek. 



The hills and the sides of the mountains are covered with woods, the 

 valleys are open, rich grass lands, here and there under cultivation. 

 The principal tree is the Rocky Mountain yellow pine {Fimis ponderosa 

 scopulorum), the only tree that grows abundantly enough to make a 

 forest. Lumbermen distinguish two varieties, in which I could see only 

 individual variation. On the north side of the mountains, and even on 

 the south side of the Harney Mountains at an elevation of about 900 

 meters above the level of French Creek and between 540 and 580 meters 

 above the sea, there is also found spruce, but not, as one would expect, 

 any of the Rocky INIountain species. It is the northern white si)ruce 

 {Picea canadensifi). But how did it come to the Hills I The pines have 

 probably come from the west, from the Rockies, over the Big Horn or 

 the Laramie mountains, and the hills of Wyoming. The deciduous trees 

 have crejit up the tributaries of the Cheyenne River. The spruce, 

 which grows only in the highest part of the Hills could not have done 

 either. The nearest point in the Rockies from which I have seen the 

 white spruce reported is about 100 miles farther north and 400 or 500 

 miles farther west, viz, in the valley of Blackfoot River in western Mon- 

 tana. There are no higli mountains north of the Black Hills, aud the 

 spruce apparently is not found growing anywhere else in the Dakotas 

 or eastern Montana. Neither does it grow in the two mountain ranges 

 named above nor in the Yellowstone National Park. It must have come 

 to the Black Hills in prehistoric times, when Dakota had a colder climate 

 and the woods extended over the plains, or else seeds must have been 

 brought there by migratory birds. The juniper, a nearly prostrate form 

 of Junipcru.s coinmunis, is common on tlie knolls, but the red cedar 

 J. rirf/ini((n(i is very rare. I saw only two stunted shrubs on the Buck- 

 horn Mountains near Custer. 



Of the deciduous trees there are: 



Hetiihi jxipyrared, fauoe bircli. Salix hebbiana, willow. 



Betula occidentaliH, western bl;ick .Sa/ix discolor, willow, 



biinb. Salix conlala, willow. 

 Populus treiuuloidea. <inaking aspen. 



13144— No. 8 2 



