242 
NATURE FOR ITS OWN SAKE 
In 
Montana. 
The Bad 
Lands. 
Colors of 
decay. 
here and there sawed-off mountains that are 
succeeded by flat basins, where once the buffalo 
grazed in countless numbers, and where even 
to-day one may occasionally see the sheeny coat 
of an antelope glistening in the sun. The 
eastern portion of the state bordering on Da- 
kota shows in its cliffs, buttes, and gravel beds 
a land once shaken by volcanic convulsion, and 
water-swept by flood and glacier. Timber is 
rarely seen upon it, grass grows in small tufts 
but a few inches high, and the predominant 
growth is sage-bush and cactus. Yet its weird- 
ness and its desolation make it attractive ; and 
to one interested in color it is the queerest 
region in all the world. The dry, alkaline clay 
throws off local hues of red, orange, pink, and 
yellow with the first glint of sunshine ; and the 
shadows are blue, violet, and lilac. ‘These are 
the same hues of decay that we met with in 
Venice, for the Bad Lands region died centuries 
ago. It is to-day showing us that beauty of 
color which we see in iridescent glass, and the 
cause of the one is the cause of the other; that 
is to say, the disintegration of fibre, the chemi- 
cal rot of matter. 
But the Bad Lands country is something of 
an accident of nature—a tumbled and broken 
