Douglass : A Geological Reconnaissance. 233 



steep grades, but the road passes over low ridges and broad flats. The 

 underlying rocks are Fort Union. They are mostly soft, but in places 

 there are strata or lenses of sandstone. These on the removal of the 

 softer rock break into blocks and remain on the surface. So different 

 are these blocks from most of the rock of the region, that people 

 wonder " how they get there." There are not many of these on the 

 road to Dickinson, but on the road to Belfield, which branches off 

 from the " H. T. Road " and takes a more northerly direction nearer 

 the Little Missouri River, there is much of this sandstone, which in 

 some places forms quite thick beds. 



In all this distance of about forty miles from White Butte to the 

 Little Bad-lands, I do not remember seeing more than two trees and 

 they were far away by a small coulee. When I first drove over the 

 road, it was the twelfth of November. It was a delightfully warm 

 autumn day, and the ride was pleasant ; yet, besides one coyote, I did 

 not see anything animate — not even a bird or an insect. The coyote 

 stepped a little to one side of the road as I passed, opened his mouth, 

 ran out his tongue, and seemed to smile. He followed me for a mile 

 or two, seeming by every act to say : "I would like to be your dog, if 

 you fellows hadn't such a grudge against us ; but anyway I know you 

 haven't a gun now, so I am all right." 



I looked carefully all along the road for signs of Oligocene deposits, 

 but found nothing until I approached my destination. Much of the 

 land on account of the removal of the soil is a kind of "gumbo," 

 which is not favorable for farming purposes or exceptionally good for 

 grazing land. In many localities, where no vegetation grows, little 

 dark or black ironstone pebbles and fragments of petrified wood are 

 scattered over the ground. Many of the fragments of fossil wood have 

 a gnarled appearance, and are turned to a very hard substance much 

 like flint. 



In one place, just to the west of the road, a {ew miles north of 

 White Butte, are very rough bad-lands, the beginning of the " breaks " 

 of the Little Missouri (Plate XVII). On my return I stopped at the 

 place, examined the strata, and made a collection of fossil plants and 

 fresh-water mollusca. Among the plants were hickory (^Hickoria) , 

 poplar i^Poptilus) and elm (^U/»ius). The beds, as is usually the case 

 in the Fort Union, are composed of clay, lignite, sandy clay, and 

 sandstone. In the beds are many brown concretions. Shells are not 

 numerous and are usually too frail for preservation as specimens. The 



