246 ■ Annals of the Carnegie Museum. 



were found, and they appeared to be different from those below. A 

 little higher the eruptive rock, which caps the highest portion of the 

 butte, was seen overlying the Fort Union Beds. 



On the high land between Porcupine Butte and Melville Butte the 

 flaky shales of the Fort Union are exposed in wind-blown areas. 

 Noith of Melville Butte on branches of Fish Creek are excellent 

 exposures of the basal Tertiary. In many places fossil reptiles and 

 plants were found, but no good mammalian remains. 



Every morning during my trip I arose with hopes of finding more 

 of the early Tertiary mammals, which, previous to the discovery of a 

 few bones and teeth in the region northeast of Melville, had never 

 been found outside a certain region in New Mexico. But every day 

 I was disappointed and it was with regret that I turned my horse 

 in the direction of Big Timber, feeling that my duty called me west- 

 ward. I was sure that somewhere in these Lower Eocene beds, which 

 cover such extensive areas in eastern Montana, someone would find, 

 what we long have wished, more of the peculiarly interesting mam- 

 malian fauna which flourished in the dawn of the Tertiary age.^ 



The Crazy Mountains. — The region of the Crazy Mountains is in- 

 teresting to the student of geology and physiography, and it is by no 

 means without its charm to the sight-seer and the admirer of natural 

 beauty. The mountains are the first, except the occasional glimpses 

 of distant ones to the southward, which one sees when travelling 

 westward on the Northern Pacific Railroad. If the time is spring, 

 autumn, or winter, and there are no clouds, the ridges and peaks make 

 white gashes in the cold blue sky, and all through the summer patches 

 of snow usually remain far up among the barren summits between the 

 sharp ridges. From these snow-fields descend streams, which dash and 

 tumble through the deep gorges. On the sides of the steep bar- 

 ren ridges, it is said, are masses and sheets of loose rocks which some 

 natural disturbances or the tread of the foot of the explorer may set in 

 motion, and then, like a river or a moving liquid sheet, they go glid- 

 ing, tumbling, leaping, plunging, and roaring down the steep and pre- 

 cipitous slopes with a terrifying din. Ill fares the man who cannot 

 get out of the river of rocks which he has set in motion. Near the 

 base of the higher portion of the mountains there is timber in the 

 canons, and the scene may be less desolate, but scarcely less rugged, as 

 the mountains everywhere are scored by deep canons. 



' I understand that since this was written extremely interesting mammalian fossils 

 have been found in these deposits. 



