1874.] 253 [Allen 



and also along the Rosebud and Tongue Rivers. In speaking of the 

 country between the Rosebud and Tongue Rivers, Dr. Hayden re- 

 marks : "As we ascend this ridge, we find the country exceedingly 

 rough, gashed up by myriads of gullies, and covered with square, con- 

 ical hills eighty to two hundred feet high. A bed of yellow marl 

 forms the summit, then a layer of lignite which has frequently ignited 

 and baked the superincumbent yellow marl, so that the high hills are 

 covered with a bed five to twenty feet in thickness with a brick-red 

 rock, many of them fused. Sometimes immense masses are cemented 

 together in large blocks of nearly baked material. The melted ma- 

 terial varies in character from a light vesicular to a hard, compact 

 rock Descending into the valley of the Rosebud, we en- 

 counter the same rugged country, with indications of the burning out 

 of the lignite beds and the fused and semi-fused material covering the 

 hills, giving them a peculiarly picturesque, reddened appearance. 

 Numerous seams of lignite occur more or less pure," etc. 1 Speaking of 

 the same ridge nearer the mountains, he says : " The summits of the 

 ridge present a beautiful red appearance from the burning out of 

 lignite beds." Again he says : "As far as one can see, perhaps a dis- 

 tance of thirty miles, there is most abundant evidence of the burning 

 of the lignite beds. The thick bed of lignite which occurs on the Yel- 

 lowstone seems to have spread over a great area of country, and to 

 have ignited to a great extent, giving to the surface of the country a 

 picturesque appearance." 2 Dr. C. M. Hines, in describing the coun- 

 ry along the right bank of the Rosebud, near the Wolf Mountains, 

 observes as follows : " The same general features [occur] as on Tul- 

 _ lock's Creek, excepting that the tops of the mountains present a 

 beautiful pink or carmine color; the surface of the hills being covered 

 with broken and detached pieces of stone and burnt clay to the depth 

 of forty or fifty feet. Mingled with it is sandstone, some of it in a 

 pulverulent form, and the other portions again have a scoriated ap- 

 pearance. The lignite in this vicinity approaches nearly to coal, and 

 the beds increase in depth." 3 



The most western point of the occurrence of these burned out lig- 

 nite beds, east of the Rocky Mountains and south of the Yellowstone, 

 appears to be the dividing ridge between the head of Tullock's 

 Creek (one of the lower eastern tributaries of the Big Horn) and the 



1 Geol. Rep. Expl. Missouri and Yellowstone, p. 5P, 1869. 

 * Ibid, pp. 63, 64. 

 3 Ibid., p. 96. 



