146 Treeless Areas of the Northwest — Lelherg. 



and are yet at work to prevent any extensive forest growth, either 

 wild or cultivated: and if the views hereafter set forth prove to be 

 the true ones, the same causes Avill be constantly tending to en- 

 large the timberless areas towards the east. 



As before remarked, the portion of North Dakota lying west 

 of the Missouri river possesses no timbered areas aside from the 

 forest growth on the Missouri river bottoms. 



Scattered groves of stunted trees are found here and there 

 lining the banks of the sm ill streams on the northern and east- 

 ern slopes of the buttes, and in the deep ravines that occasionally 

 radiate from these hills. The number of species of trees that 

 compose these groves are not many; boxelders and cottonwoods 

 occupying the chief place. With them occur Prunus Americana, 

 wild plum, confined to the region of the Little Missouri river; 

 Prunus pumila, dwarf cherry, Shepherdia Canadensis and argentea 

 and Elesegnus argentens, the buffalo berries; various species of 

 gooseberries and currants, while the Coniferse are represented by a 

 trailing Juniper, that usually covers the driest portions of the hills 

 with its widely creeping branches. 



The forest growth now so scanty was not always so. On 

 every hand we see abundant remains which testify to the fact that 

 in a not so very distant geologic epoch, vast forests flourished, 

 where now only their fossil or carbonaceous remains are met 

 with. 



On crossing the Missouri river at Bismarck one notices with- 

 in a distance of 20 or 25 miles to the westward, the drift sheet 

 that covers eastern Dakota and so much of Minnesota gradually 

 thinning out, and the underlying rocks coming to the surface. At 

 the same time numerous seams of lignite or brown coal, some of 

 considerable thickness, begin to crop out in the banks of streams, 

 deep ravines, and wherever the surface has suffered any extensive 

 denudation. Large slabs, or pieces of fossil-wood likewise become 

 abundant. These features increase constantly the farther west- 

 ward we go. The pebbles in the beds of the streams are all fossil- 

 wood in every variety of silicifieation, often very beautiful, the 

 grain of the wood, the ducts, the annual layers, the knotty and 

 gnarled branches are all faithfully preserved. Not only is the 

 wood of the limbs and trunks of these ancient trees preserved, 

 but even their stumps still remain in the ground apparently in 

 the identical place where they once grew. In numerous places 



