1876.] The Little Missouri * Bad Lands.” 207 
bugs. It is credible, moreover, that when larger amounts of the 
_ bugs are thrown into a fire to destroy them, even when not con- 
taining any arsenic, an incomplete combustion might take place, 
in which case carbonous oxide (CO) would be produced, which 
would certainly bring about the evil effects complained of. It 
may also be remarked that previous to the advent of the potato 
bug the potato plant itself had not been so freely handled as 
lately ; an inquiry as to the effects of the entrance of the minute 
hairs from the leaf into the skin, and also into the properties of 
the juice of the plant, might show cause for some symptoms com- 
plained of. Le 
At this time, when the use of arsenious acid is forbidden in 
Germany in the manufacture of aniline colors, on account of its 
evil effects on. animal organisms, it may not be thought im- 
proper to call the attention of the people of our country to the 
present use of arsenic in the culture of so universal a food plant 
as the potato. 
THE LIITEE MISSOURI “ BAD LANDS.” 
BY J. A: ALLEN. 
P Western Dakota are what are termed the Little Missouri 
“Bad Lands,” a region as picturesque and strange as the 
agination can well conceive. As we leave the Missouri River at 
Fort Abraham Lincoln, the present western terminus of the 
Northern Pacific Railroad, the journey to these ‘ Bad Lands ” 
18 mainly by the so-called Sully’s Trail, which runs nearly due 
Westward between the 46th and 47th parallels. The three hun- 
dred miles of treeless prairies that lie between the Missouri and 
Little Missouri rivers present us with nothing of remarkable 
lnterest. Gradually, as we advance westward, the grass becomes 
Scantier and the cacti and sage bushes more abundant, evincing 
the increasing aridity of the climate. Isolated, conical mounds 
or ** buttes,” occasionally of considerable height, are seen at long 
intervals, and serve as important landmarks. ‘The streams are 
few and small, the most of them dwindling towards the end of 
summer to a series of detached, brackish pools. Along the larger 
of them we meet here and there with little clumps of trees, or, 
more rarely, with continuous narrow belts of timber, consisting 
mainly of box-elder and eotton-wood, with a sprinkling of elm ; 
oF occasionally they are made up almost entirely of oak. These 
ttle Stoves, sometimes a day’s journey apart, constitute the 
im 
