First Expedition to Kansas Chalk 39 



If they are, their minds will dwell upon their dis- 

 comforts, and they will accomplish little, as the hun- 

 gry boy, who keeps turning his head in the direction 

 of the sun and wondering whether it is not almost 

 dinner-time, is not likely to hoe much corn. My 

 first step, therefore, must be to find water and pitch 

 a camp. 



But often I have no idea where water is to be 

 found, and must give as much care to the search 

 as if I were looking for fossils. So while the driver 

 follows me with the wagon, I hunt for water and 

 fossils at the same time. 



Both sides of my ravine are bordered with cream- 

 colored, or yellow, chalk, with blue below. Some- 

 times for hundreds of feet the rock is entirely de- 

 nuded and cut into lateral ravines, ridges, and 

 mounds, or beautifully sculptured into tower and 

 obelisk. Sometimes it takes on the semblance of a 

 ruined city, with walls of tottering masonry, and 

 only a near approach can convince the eye that this 

 is only another example of that mimicry in which 

 nature so frequently indulges. 



The chalk beds are entirely bare of vegetation, 

 with the exception of a desert shrub that " finds a 

 foothold in the rifted rock " and sends its roots 

 down every crevice. This shrub is one of the fossil 

 hunter's worst enemies. Sending its roots down 

 the clefts in the rock, it searches out the fossil bones 



