THE NORTHERN PACIFIC ROUTE. 61 
The railway rises steadily up the regular slope by Belfield to the 
divide between Knife River and Little Missouri River. The valley 
of the Little Missouri is noted for its scenery, but it is 
Belfield. : 
of even greater interest on account of some of the 
preheat sabe a distinguished people who inhabited it in the days of 
e open range, when the ‘‘cow puncher” was in his 
glory. Col. Theodore Roosevelt resided for a number of years on a 
ranch in this valley about 20 miles south of the railway, and here he 
acquired that knowledge of and sympathy for the free life of the 
plains that has so endeared him to the western people. : 
Fryburg is situated on the summit between the drainage basins of 
Knife River and Little Missouri River. The descent to the Little 
Missouri is made through amaze of badland forms that 
Fryburg. stand out in striking contrast to the gentle rolling 
Flevation 2,790 feet. surface of the upland east of the divide. Little Mis- 
Population, 288*. s A : 
St. Paul 587 miles,  Souri River has cut its valley about 500 feet deep, and 
all its tributaries have made similar sharp cuts in the 
upland, so that the main stream is bordered by a belt of rough coun. 
try from 10 to 15 miles in width. As the early French explorers and 
traders had difficulty in crossing these belts they called them ‘“‘mauvais 
terres 4 traverser” or bad lands to cross. From this has come the 
common appellation ‘‘badlands.” 
The change from the grassy upland east of Fryburg to the badlands 
of Pyramid Park on Sully Creek is very abrupt, and the traveler is 
likely to be bewildered by the seemingly endless 
Sully Springs. variety of form, arrangement, and color. There is 
ages gs an apparent lack of plan in the arrangement of the 
: ' forms, as if some giant hand had fashioned these mon- 
uments and then strewn them about without plan or purpose. Views 
of the badlands are shown in Plates VI-[IX. The natural color is a 
somber gray, but this is enlivened by bands and splotches of red where 
beds of lignite have burned. In some places, as at Scoria siding, the 
burning has been so intense that all the rocks are deep red and huge 
blocks of half-fused material are abundant. From the evidence on 
every side one might imagine that at some previous time this place 
had been an inferno rivaling that of Dante’s most vivid imagination, 
but it is probable that the burning took place so slowly that the gen- 
eral temperature was no greater than it is to-day. It is reported that 
one of the lignite beds is now on fire at no great distance from the 
track. If the traveler should come this way on a hot day in August 
he might well believe that he felt the added heat of the burning lignite, 
for there is no place hotter than badlands of this character on a hot 
day, but a cold day in winter would give him a different impression. 
