250 GEOLOGICAL SUEVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 



Scenery of the Loess deposits. 



It has been remarked that "no sharp lines of demarkation separate the 

 kinds of scenery that produce the emotions of the grand and the beau- 

 tiful." This is eminently true of some of the scenery produced by the 

 Loess formations. Occasionally an elevation is encountered from whose 

 summit there are such magnificent views of river, bottom, forest, and 

 winding bluffs as to produce all the emotions of the sublime. One such 

 elevation is Pilgrim Hill, in Dakota County, on the farm of Hon. J. 

 Warner. From this hill the Missouri bottom, with its marvelous, weird- 

 like river, can be seen for twenty miles. Dakota City and Sioux City, 

 the latter distant sixteen miles, are plainly visible. If it happens to be 

 Indian summer, the tints of the woods vie with the hazy splendor of the 

 sky to give to the far outstretched landscape more than an oriental splen- 

 dor. I have looked with amazement at some of the wonderful canons 

 of the Rocky Mountains, but nothing there more completely filled me 

 and satisfied the craving for the grand in nature than did this view from 

 Pilgrim Hill. Another view equally majestic is on the Missouri, back of 

 Iona, in Dixon County. My attention .was directed to it by John Hill, 

 esq., who took me to the West point for observing the river, which can 

 here be seen for a great distance. The alternations of lofty bluff and bot- 

 tom, woodland and prairie, give a picture worthy the pencil of the most 

 gifted artist, and of all who love the grand and picturesque in nature. 

 It is true that suchscences are rare, but then there are many landscapes 

 which, if not grand, are still of wonderful beauty. This is the case along 

 most of the bluffs of the principal rivers. In Northern Nebraska these 

 bluffs often reach two hundred or more feet in height, and this perhaps 

 gives this portion ot the State the most varied scenery. At some points 

 these bluffs are rounded off and melt beyond into a gently-rolling plain. 

 But they constantly vary, and following them you come now into abeau- 

 ful cove, now to a curious headland, then to terraces, and, however far 

 you travel, you in vain look for a picture like the one just passed. Nu- 

 merous rounded tips, with strangely precipitous sides, are seen in every 

 hour's travel, and these, as they form bold curves, rampart-like, stretch 

 away into the distance and form images of the most impressive beauty. 

 Indeed the bluffs of the Loess deposits are unique, and Ruskin cannot 

 exhaust the subject of the beautiful until he sees and studies the hills of 

 Nebraska. 



Origin of the lacustrine deposits. 



The geological discoveries of the last decade, and especially those of 

 Dr. Hayden, indicate that there have been no breaks in geological his- 

 tory. If this view is correct, then the Glacial age was not suddenly 

 inaugurated, as was once held. At least, during the latter portion of the 

 Pliocene age, the temperature was steadily falling from year to year. 

 It may have been so slow as to be only perceptible in the course of cen- 

 turies. Finally, however, glaciers formed in the polar regions. Grad- 

 ually, by the continually-falling temperature, these glaciers crept 

 southward from the polar regions, until, in the course of ages, they 

 covered the whole land down to perhaps the thirty-fifth degree of north 

 latitude. It was during this period that, perhaps, most of the glacial 

 scratches and other markings of these times, so familiar to the geologist, 

 were made all over the north temperate zone, from the thirty-fifth de- 

 gree towards the pole. After the glaciers had done their work, during 

 a period whose length is undetermined,. a new change of level and of 

 climate was inaugurated, and the ice-fields began to wane and gradually 



