THE REIGN OF MAMMALS. 207 



doorway and clustered shaft, pinnacle, and finial, and ta- 

 pering spire." 



On a nearer approach the illusion reluctantly vanishes, 

 and all the fancied architecture is resolved into piles of 

 hardened clay and sand. These rise from the bottom of 

 the vale to the height of fifty, one hundred, and two hun- 

 dred feet, showing along their vertical or sloping sides the 

 varied courses of masonry of which they are composed. In 

 the hundreds of towers and isolated masses that rise from 

 this vale of solitude, the order of the courses is the same ; 

 and this agrees with the arrangement in the solid walls 

 which circumscribe the valley. A thousand storms have 

 washed the slopes, and furrowed them into the similitude 

 of fluted shafts and clustered columns, which, at the top, 

 bear sometimes a brown entablature of overhanging grass, 

 or continue upward into tower and minaret. The bottom 

 of the vale is an earth of chalky whiteness, baked by the 

 sun, and utterly destitute of vegetation. The water which 

 oozes out of the foundation-wall of the prairie is brackish 

 and unpalatable. In winter, the wind and snow rush 

 through the lanes and corridors of this city of the dead in 

 eddying whirls, while the withered grasses and the voice- 

 less and motionless solitude, together with the relentless 

 frost and never-tiring storm, make the place the realization 

 of utter bleakness and desolation. In summer the scorch- 

 ing sun literally bakes the clays which have been kneaded 

 by the frosts and thaws of spring, and the daring explorer 

 of the scene finds no tree or shrub to shelter him from the 

 fervid rays poured down from above, and reflected from the 

 white walls w T hich tower around him, and the white floor 

 which almost blisters his feet. 



But the most impressive feature of the scene is the mul- 

 titude of fossil bones which appear built into the massive 

 masonry of this mimic architecture. The wearing and 



