34 USIRAUIBIE (C, SOS SIBILIL 
top of the tower which is the most prominent object in the land- 
scape. On looking west from this point of view, it is at once 
apparent that the observer is on the immediate border of a table- 
land which stretches away far beyond the limits of view. On 
this plateau and four or five miles distant, stands a group of 
three hills known as the Little Missouri buttes. 
It requires but a glance from almost any commanding posi- 
tion in the neighborhood of Mato Teepee, to show that the 
valley of the Belle Fourche has been eroded in the flanks of a 
broad uplift, which culminates several miles to the east in a great 
dome-shaped elevation known as Mount Warren. In fact the 
rocks removed to form the valley hardly interrupt the gentle 
sweep of the sky-line as one follows the profile of the land on 
looking southwest. It is at once apparent to every observant 
person who looks down on the valley of the Belle Fourche from 
a commanding station, that the stratified rocks which form the 
bordering bluffs of the valley were once continuous, and that the 
whole depression has been formed by erosion. Mato Teepee 
rises from the bottom of this valley and must at one time have 
been surrounded by the strata that have been carried away. It 
is a monument of erosion not unworthy of the great events it 
commemorates. Restore the rocks which have been removed in 
order to form the valley up to the level of the cliffs on which the 
reader is supposed to stand, and Mato Teepee would be nearly 
buried. A thousand feet of rock have been removed to form 
the valley about it, but this does not represent the entire amount 
of the erosion that has taken place. This is shown by the his- 
tory of the Little Missouri buttes which stand on the plateau 
stretching west from Mato Teepee. These hills are of the same 
nature as the great tower in the valley below, and were intruded 
among sedimentary strata that rested on the platform above 
which they now rise. As their tops are more than 500 feet 
above the plateau, it is evident that more than this thickness of 
rock has been removed in order to expose them. 
As erosion goes on, the rocks forming Mato Teepee will 
crumble and be carried away by the stream which is even now 
