284 GEOLOGY OF THE BLACK HILLS. 



the hub, and give rise to small streams, flowing outwardly from the center, 

 draining the area. Those to the southeast and south empty into the Red- 

 water ; the rest flow into the Belle Fourche or its branches. 



To the north an extensive tract is observed wooded with pine of me- 

 dium size. Scattered groves occur elsewhere on the ridges and in the 

 ravines, but large areas are comparatively destitute of timber, and broad 

 grass-covered divides are seen to the west and northwest between the 

 streams emptying into the Belle Fourche. 



To the east, across the broad valley of the Redwater, excavated in the 

 gypsum and sandy clays of the Red Beds, Crow Peak is seen, an angular 

 blue-black butte, forming the most northern peak in the main range of the 

 Black Hills. Between it and Inyan Kara stretches the great limestone for- 

 mation so extensively developed on Floral Valley and the head branches 

 of the Redwater. 



To the west (magnetic), some twenty miles away, Bear Lodge Butte 

 and the Little Missouri Buttes appear in line. From this distance the 

 former resembles in appearance the huge stump of a tree, its surface 

 curiously striated vertically from top to base, and, being perched on the 

 crest of a high, flat-topped ridge, it becomes a very prominent landmark, 

 which, once seen, is so singular and unique that it can never be forgotten. 

 Although the Bear Lodge country is an elevated region, and the different 

 streams have a considerable fall before reaching the Belle Fourche, yet the 

 topography is quite peculiar in the prevalence of long, flat-topped ridges or 

 mesas between the narrow and deep valleys and canons of the creeks 

 This is due to the resistance to erosion offered by hard and continuous 

 strata of sandstone of the Jurassic and Cretaceous formations, which are 

 here almost horizontal in their bedding, with a gentle slope away from 

 Warren Peaks. 



In a series of annular belts the different geological formations outcrop 

 around the central nucleus of Warren Peaks. In passing down any of 

 the numerous radiating ravines of the streams for three or four miles all 

 the several members of the section are successfully encountered in the order 

 of their deposition, from the Potsdam to the Dakota sandstone of the Cre- 

 taceous. Upturned at an angle of about 20° by the intrusion of the tra- 



