156 EXTINCT MONSTERS. 



No trouble and no expense have been spared in order to obtain 

 material for this great work, and all geologists must feel grateful 

 to Professor Marsh for so liberally devoting his time and his 

 private resources in order to advance the science of Palaeon- 

 tology. 



The region in which the remains occur of the remarkable 

 group of extinct animals now under consideration, has a peculiar 

 scenery of its own, unlike anything in Europe. The following 

 graphic description of its features is from the pen of Sir Archibald 

 Geikie : l 



" On the high plateau that lies to the west of the Rocky 

 Mountains, along the southern borders of the Wyoming territory, 

 the traveller moving westwards begins to enter on peculiar scenery. 

 Bare, treeless wastes of naked stone, rising here and there into 

 terraced ledges and strange tower-like prominences, or sinking 

 into hollows where the water gathers in salt or bitter pools. 

 Under the cloudless sky, and in the clear dry atmosphere, the 

 extraordinary colouring of these landscapes forms, perhaps, their 

 weirdest feature. Bars of deep red alternate with strips of 

 orange, now deepening into sombre browns, now blazing out 

 again into vermilion, with belts of lilac, buff, pale green, and 

 white. And everywhere the colours run in almost horizontal 

 bands, running across hollows and river-gorges for mile after 

 mile through this rocky desert. The parallel strips of colour 

 mark the strata that cover all this wide plateau country. They 

 are the tints characteristic of an enormous accumulation of 

 sedimentary rocks, that mark the site of a vast Eocene lake, or 

 succession of lakes, on what is now nearly the crest of the 

 continent." 



In this strange region the flat-topped hills, table-lands, or 

 terraces, as they are variously named, seen from lower levels, are 

 usually called " buttes," especially when they are of limited 

 extent. This name is of French origin, and signifies a bank of 



1 Nat:tre, vol. xxxii. p. 97. 



