QUATERNARY AGE. 269 



the Missouri, the Lower Platte, and some other streams, are some- 

 times exceedingly precipitous, and sometimes gently rounded off. 

 They often assume fantastic forms, as if carved by some curious 

 generations of the past. But now they retain their forms so un- 

 changed from year to year, affected by neither rain nor frost, that 

 they must have been molded into their present outlines under cir- 

 cumstances of climate and level very different from that which now 

 prevails. 



For all purposes of architecture this soil, even for the most mas- 

 sive structures, is perfectly secure. I have never known a founda- 

 tion of a large brick or stone building, if commenced below the 

 winter frost line, to give way. Even when the first layers of brick 

 and stone are laid on top of the ground there is seldom such unev- 

 enness of settling as to produce fractures in the walls. On no other 

 deposits, except the solid rock, are there such excellent roads. 

 From twelve to twenty-four hours after the heaviest rains 

 the roads are perfectly dry, and often appear, sifter being 

 traveled a few days, like a vast floor formed from cement, 

 and by the highest art of man. The drawback to this pic- 

 ture is that sometimes during a drought the air along the highways 

 on windy days is filled with dust. And yet the soil is very easily 

 worked, yielding readily to the spade or plow. Excavation is re- 

 markably easy, and no pick or mattock is thought of for such pur- 

 poses. It might be expected that such a soil readily yielded to at- 

 mospheric influences, but such is not the case. Wells in this de- 

 posit are frequently walled up only to a point above the water line; 

 and on the remainder the spade-marks will be visible for years. In- 

 deed, the traveler over Nebraska will often be surprised to see 

 spade-marks and carved-out names and dates years after they were 

 first made, where ordinary soils would soon have fallen away into 

 a gentle slope. This peculiarity of the soil has often been a God-send 

 to poor emigrants. Such often cut out of the hillsides a shelter for 

 themselves and their stock. Many a time when caught out on the 

 roads in a storm, far away from the towns, have I found shelter in 

 a " dug-out" with an emigrant's family, where, cozy and warm, 

 there was perfect comfort, with little expenditure of fuel on the 

 coldest days. 



In summer such shelters are much cooler than frame or brick 

 houses. I shall never forget one occasion in 1866 when, bewildered 

 by a blinding snow-storm, I came to a "dug-out," and although all 



