14 THE PLAINS. 



hours before (as, I am told, was usual with him) he had 

 converted the whole garrison into enthusiastic naturalists, 

 and everything rare or curious was brought to him for 

 examination and explanation. One of the officers had a 

 bone from the Julesburg well, which, after some trouble, 

 was fished out of a box of similar treasures, where, care- 

 fully labelled, it had been stowed away as something most 

 especially worth preserving. This was brought to the 

 Professor, who examined it carefully, while we stood 

 around in eager expectation. 'It is,' said he in the 

 broken English which gave additional charm to his most 

 interesting and instructive conversation ' it is the bone 

 of an antelope.' ' How,' exclaimed several, in disappointed 

 surprise, ' could an antelope bone get three hundred feet 

 under ground ? ' ' Ah ! that,' answered the Professor, ' I do 

 not know ; but I do know that this is the leg-bone of an 

 antelope.' 



At many times, and in widely separated localities, I 

 assisted at the unearthing of bones of extinct monsters, 

 or turned over piles of curious fossils, or great beds ot 

 shells, which, I regret to admit, I was too ignorant to 

 classify or fully appreciate. One of the most remark- 

 able of plains phenomena is the wide dissemination of 

 petrifactions. It is scarcely possible to examine any piece 

 of pebbly ground without finding numbers of specimens, 

 some of them extremely perfect and beautiful. Some- 

 times acres of a plain will be covered with specimens of 

 4 wood agates ' of almost every shade of colour, from pure 

 white to jet black, from almost perfect transparency to 

 thickest opacity, all solidified in the hardest of quartz, but 

 showing the annual rings of woody fibre as clearly as if 

 the specimen had just been torn from its native tree. 

 Sometimes whole forests appear to have been converted 

 into stone. In a small ravine, a dry tributary of ' Two 

 Butte Creek,' I once came upon what appeared to be a 

 sort of raft or obstruction of logs. As it is a perfectly 

 treeless country, I was led to a closer examination, and to 



