70 
House Butte, which was not examined, but only seen from 
the distance, probably belongs to the same. Near the Missouri 
Valley, the water-courses and lake valleys are cut down 
to lower strata, and in the bottom of one lake, not far from 
Fort Berthold, a lignite bed was noticed. Chantree Hill on 
the southern shore of Mini-Wakan appears to be Drift also, 
or is perhap§, in part at least, an artificial mound, as a large 
double cross of stone flags was found on its summit. 
The Organic forms which inhabit the plateaus on the two 
sides of the Missouri Valley do not differ much in character. 
In midsummer, when the expedition of 1864 crossed the 
inclined plain between the Missouri and the Little Missouri 
des Gros Ventres, the gentle undulating hillsides were cov- 
ered almost exclusively with the well-known Buffalo-Grass, 
then maturing its seed, and waving like a golden field of 
dwarfed grain only two feet high. The banks of the small 
running streams as the Cannonball, Big Knife, and Heart 
Rivers, are fringed with little groves and copses, principally 
of the Box Elder, Negundo Aceroides, while the sides of the 
Takaokutahs is covered with a very fine, dense growth of 
timber, Oak, Ash, Elm, Maple, Cherry, &c., and various 
other kinds. Two characteristic plants, the Cottonwood- 
poplar and the Wild Grape, are not to be seen on this 
inclined plain. On descending into the Bad Lands of the 
Little Missouri, the character of the Flora is slightly changed. 
The Cedar, Juniper, and a creeping Lycopodium-like dwarf- 
species of Juniperus, the Choke-Cherry and Plum Bushes, 
clothe the smaller gorges, while the hill-sides are almost 
entirely bare of vegetation, showing only here and there a 
Cactus, Artemisia or pyramidal, white-flowering Argemone. 
Further down on the banks of the Little Missouri, the 
Cottonwood and the Bull Berry, a thorny shrub, with very 
astringent reddish yellow berries, both plants characteristic 
of the valley of the Missouri and the Yellowstone, appear. 
At the time the expedition passed, the plateau between the 
Little Missouri and the Yellowstone was almost completely 
stripped of its grass by a devastating army of Orthoptera, of 
which grasshoppers formed the van, and crickets the rear 
