244 Annals of the Carnegie Museum. 



manent dwellings among these grassy hills ; though they make good 

 grazing lands, and camps of sheep-herders are occasionally found by 

 the springs. These beds are of uppermost Cretaceous or Lower Ter- 

 tiary age. 



Not having seen, except perhaps at a distance, an inhabited dwell- 

 ing during the day, late in the afternoon I followed a branch-road or 

 trail which led toward Sweetgrass Creek. Descending to lower and 

 lower elevations, I at last found myself on an alluvial flat which borders 

 the creek. The stream is lined with cottonwoods, willows, and ever- 

 greens, the band of timber now widening into a little wooded flat — a 

 miniature forest — and then narrowing to a mere fringe of small trees 

 or shrubbery along the creek. Following the alluvial bench on the west 

 side of the creek for some distance I crossed the stream and followed 

 a trail through a luxurious growth of grasses, sedges, weeds, and 

 shrubs, then through the shadows of large trees, and again through a 

 high dense growth of weeds to where there were haystacks, a stable, 

 and a log cabin. The cabin was locked and there was no one at 

 home, but I put the horse in the stable. On ascending the hill east 

 of the stream, I saw that the country on this side had more timber, 

 many of the slopes and ravines being sparsely covered with evergreens. 

 I inferred that the rocks were of Fort Union age. Returning after 

 dark I found that the ranch belonged to a young man from Maine, 

 Mr. Gurney, who had just returned from Big Timber. Though I 

 had made myself at home he made me more so, as he, like nearly all 

 the people of this country, retains the old-time western hospitality. 

 Mr. Gurney' s cabin is on the eastern border of one of the wooded 

 flats which I have previously described. On the east side was a small 

 field of grain reaching toward the rounded hills. South of the cabin 

 is a cliff which is partly covered with evergreens, and which over- 

 shadowed the little woodland that extends westward to the pebbly- 

 bottomed stream. Farther up the stream is an open space with 

 meadows, and beyond this a little woodland and another cliff ap- 

 proaching the river. West of the stream are moderately high grassy 

 hills. This is perhaps ten to fifteen miles above where the stop was 

 made the previous night, and the rocks along the creek are very nearly 

 the same in appearance. 



The next day my course was still west of the creek among smooth 

 rounded hills, like those traversed the previous afternoon. In this 

 formation (lowermost Tertiary or uppermost Cretaceous) good out- 



