20 THE WHITE RIVER BADLANDS 



face features and the general lack of good water. The 

 term is unduly detractive although apt enough in frontier 

 days when hardships of travel were rigorous even under the 

 best of circumstances. 



Much the greater portion of the area within the badland 

 region as commonly understood is level and fertile and is 

 covered with rich wild grasses and recent occupation by 

 thousands of settlers has brought out the fact that over 

 large tracts, especially on the higher tables, good refreshing 

 water may be obtained by sinking shallow wells in the soil 

 and gravel mantle that lies rather widespread on the sur- 

 face. The country has in years gone by been of much value 

 as an open range for the grazing of cattle and horses. Now 

 that it has been made accessible by railway the land has 

 largely passed from the government to private ownership 

 and farming and dairying on an extensive scale are being 

 carried on. Within little more than a stone's throw of 

 where the early explorers spoke of the region as an inferno 

 for heat and drought men have built homes for themselves 

 and their families and are now raising good crops of 

 vegetables, tame grasses and staple grains. 



But the purpose of this book is more particularly to 

 indicate the value of the Badlands as an educational asset. 

 Nowhere in the world can the influences of erosion be more 

 advantageously studied or more certainly or quickly under- 

 stood. Nowhere does the progress of mammalian life reveal 

 itself with greater impressiveness or clearness. Nowhere 

 do long ago days connect themselves more intimately with 

 the present or leave more helpful answers to our wondering 

 questions as to the nature and import of the earth's later 

 development. 



The most picturesque portion of the White River Bad- 

 lands lies between White river and Cheyenne river south- 

 east of the Black Hills. This is known as the Big Badlands, 

 and the chief topographic features, Sheep Mountain and the 

 Great Wall, high remnants of an extensive tableland now 

 reduced to a narrow watershed, are flanked by a marvelous 

 network of rounded hillocks, wedge slopes, grassy flats, and 

 sheer declivites. (For illustrations of these see the views in 

 the plate section ) . The Great Wall viewed from White river 

 valley presents a particularly rugged aspect and, like the 

 great wall that it is, stretches for many miles in a nearly 



