EXTINCT MONSTERS, 
156 
No trouble and no expense have been spared in order to obtain 
material for this great work, and all geologists must feel grateful 
to Professor Marsh for so liberally devoting his time and his 
private resources in order to advance the science of Palaeon- 
tology. 
The region in which the remains occur of the remarkable 
group of extinct animals now under consideration, has a peculiar 
scenery of its own, unlike anything in Europe. The following 
graphic description of its features is from the pen of Sir Archibald 
Geikie : — ^ 
“ On the high plateau that lies to the west of the Rocky 
Mountains, along the southern borders of the Wyoming territory, 
the traveller moving westwards begins to enter on peculiar scenery. 
Bare, treeless wastes of naked stone, rising here and there into 
terraced ledges and strange tower-like prominences, or sinking 
into hollows where the water gathers in salt or bitter pools. 
Under the cloudless sky, and in the clear dry atmosphere, the 
extraordinary colouring of these landscapes forms, perhaps, their 
weirdest feature. Bars of deep red alternate with strips of 
orange, now deepening into sombre browns, now blazing out 
again into vermilion, with belts of lilac, bulT, pale green, and 
white. And everywhere the colours run in almost horizontal 
bands, running across hollows and river-gorges for mile after 
mile through this rocky desert. The parallel strips of colour 
mark the strata that cover all this wide plateau country. They 
are the tints characteristic of an enormous accumulation of 
sedimentary rocks, that mark the site of a vast Eocene lake, or 
succession of lakes, on what is now nearly the crest of the 
continent.” 
In this strange region the flat-topped hills, table-lands, or 
terraces, as they are variously named, seen from lower levels, are 
usually called buttes,” especially when they are of limited 
extent. This name is of French origin, and signifies a bank of 
^ Nature, vol. xxxii. p. 97. 
