Pans 

1891.] The Hat Creek Bad Lands. 965 
Down the cañon we go, three or four miles, thirteen hundred 
feet fall. Again we enter the line of Buttes. Those we saw 
before were the buttresses on the White River side of this divide ; 
those we now see are those of the Hat Creek valley. Follow the 
horizon around, and everywhere there are the same fantastic forms, 
extending thirty or forty miles tothe north. Away beyond them 
rise the dark outlines of the Black Hills, and towering above all 
is Harney’s Peak, a hundred and twenty miles away.” Halfway 
down the cañon we followed, came in a side cañon, and here were 
the most wonderful Buttes of all. In their outlines they reminded 
us of ruined castles, fortifications, and the like, on a gigantic scale. 
The lines of stratification of the creamy-white limestone resembled 
the courses of masonry, while the crevices cut the outline into 
buttresses, terraces, and embrasures. At the end of the cafion 
nearest us the resemblance was most striking. The corners were 
square cut, and the perpendicular walls were between a hundred 
and fifty and two hundred feet in height. Above them, in the 
center, towered another mass of rock, fifty feet or more,—just as 
did the keep in many a medizval castle. 
The broad valley of Hat Creek slopes gradually down from the 
Buttes, and as we first saw it it looked as if carpeted with grass. 
A closer glance at the vegetation showed us that here the buffalo 
grass was not extinct, while the cactuses and sage-bush showed 
that the land was none of the best. A most striking feature was 
the number and brightness of the flowers. A little white lily was 
everywhere, while the bright-colored “loco weeds” (Astragalus 
and Oxytropis) gave a variety. Throughout all the west these 
weeds are said to render the animals which feed upon them crazy 
or “locoed.” There is a chance for some investigation here. One 
of the most striking of the flowers was a little Frittillaria, never 
before known to occur as far east as Nebraska. It is a graceful 
lily, with its petals nicely marked with yellow and a purplish 
brown. At Lincoln fully half the flowers were old acquaintances 
which I knew in the Atlantic states ; but here, four hundred miles 
from Lincoln, every plant was a novelty. It was interesting to 
note how closely every plant hugged the earth, the sage-bush and 
the — Bayon excepted. 

