FRENCH CIJEEK J)l«TJilCT. 227 



everywhere strongly marked, and the pecuhar topography of the region is 

 due to the resistance of the hard granite and the yielding of the micaceous 

 schists to the action of time and water. 



The prominence of the granite, which in huge, serrated ridges rises on 

 every side, is duo more to erosion than to any elevation caused by its 

 intrusion; yet the granite, though so unyielding, shows by the rounded 

 and pinnacled forms assumed by the ])eaks that time has affected it as well, 

 but in a less degree. 



To the northeast of Harney Peak is an area of slates, which j)roperly 

 belongs to the Spring Creek district, but with that exception this section is 

 almost universally granitic; the schists, wherever they occur, being con- 

 cealed by the debris resulting from the denudation of the granite ridges 

 that tower far above the surface of the softer rocks. 



Harney Peak, having an altitude of 7,403 feet above the sea, is the 

 culminating point of this great intrusion of granite, and forms the most 

 conspicuous landmark in the Black Hills, visible from the plains to the 

 south and east for a distance of more than fifty miles from the foothills. 



The park region, at the west and southwest of Harney Peak, is a 

 most agreeable contrast to the inaccesssible wilderness to the east. Broad 

 glades of level grass land extend between the parallel ridges of granite 

 and groves of pine cover the rocky hills wherever there is sufficient soil to 

 support their growth. Isolated peaks of granite, rounded by erosion and 

 weathering into dome-shaped and castellated forms, rise from the open and 

 level surface, w^hich everywhere is carpeted with the finest grass, giving a 

 beautifully picturesque and park-like scenery to the region. 



The smooth surface of the parks and the peculiarities in the topog- 

 raphy are due to the parallel ridges of granite resisting the denudation, 

 which has excavated the broad swales in the intervening softer schists, and 

 indicates that the original surface of the formation was far above the present 

 level. 



The granite is comfornaable to the stratification of the inclosing schistose 

 rocks, having been intruded between the layers; the only direction in 

 which the micaceous rocks are readily fractured. This conformability 

 is not perfect, as it would be were the granite the result of metamorphic 



