PEEFAOE 



Is it of interest to you that the White River Badlands 

 are the most famous deposits of the kind in the world? Do 

 you know that aside from their picturesque topography they 

 tell a marvelous nature story; a story of strange climate, 

 strange geography, and strange animals; of jungles, and 

 marshes, and tranquil rivers, of fierce contests for food, and 

 life, and supremacy; of a varied series of events through 

 ages and ages of time showing the working-out of well-laid 

 plans with no human being to help or interfere? Most peo- 

 ple know something of these things but generally it is in an 

 indefinite piecemeal way. Except to scientific men the 

 Badlands, instead of affording the intellectual delight that 

 they should, are commonly little else than a sterile wonder. 



This book is written in order that the intellectually 

 alert, the indifferent thinker, the old and the young, irre- 

 spective of educational advantage or technical training may 

 have opportunity to get a clearer and more comprehensive 

 idea of this wonderful part of nature's handiwork. 



The landscape views given herein, have never been sur- 

 passed, it is believed, for clearness of expression or for de- 

 tail of configuration and the reproductions of the animals, 

 made by the best vertebrate paleontologists of America, are 

 marvels of beauty and accuracy. Among the pictures of 

 animals both in fossil form and restored to life and activity 

 as they were in their ancient White river home are : Bronto- 

 therium, the huge thunderbeast ; Metamynodon, the bulky 

 rhinoceros; Moropus, the grotesque chalicothere ; Mesohip- 

 pus, the three toed horse; Oreodon, the ruminating hog; 

 Poebrotherium, the ancestral camel; Protoceras, the six- 

 horned herbivore; Hoplophoneus, the savage-tooth tiger; 

 Stylemys, the large dry land tortoise; Crocodilus, the old- 

 time crocodile; and many others long since vanished from 

 earth's activity. The book indicates why the camel of that 

 time had no pads on his feet and the deer no antlers on his 

 head, why the saber-tooth had his enormously vicious teeth, 

 why dogs had retractile claws like the cat, why the horse 



