Expedition to the Bad Lands 71 



and the ebony-like darkness seemed dense enough 

 to cut. 



Long ridges, terminating in perpendicular cliffs, 

 whose bases impinge upon the river a thousand feet 

 below, extend back into the country for miles. Often 

 they are cut by lateral ravines into peaks and pin- 

 nacles, obelisks and towers, and other fantastic 

 forms. These ridges are so narrow that we could 

 hardly walk along them, and their sides drop at an 

 angle of forty-five degrees. It was only the dis- 

 integrated shale on the surface, into which our feet 

 sank at every step, that gave us a foothold and kept 

 us from shooting with frightful velocity into the 

 gorges below. 



One day the Professor asked me to climb to a 

 point near the summit of a lofty ridge, crowned by 

 two massive ledges of sandstone, four feet thick, 

 which projected over the steep slope like the win- 

 dow sills of some Titanic building. These ledges, 

 one above the other and separated by sixty feet 

 of shale, had been swept clean for about three feet, 

 so that I found an easy pathway for my feet, when 

 after laborious climbing I reached the lower ledge. 

 From my lofty perch I had a bird's-eye view of 

 mile upon mile of the wonderful Bad Lands, a scene 

 of desolation such as no pen can picture. 



It was my duty to search every square inch of the 

 dust-covered slope between the ledges for fossil 



