FORMING THE BAD LANDS OF JUDITH RIVER. 
125 
It were to be wished that the geologist and the painter might devote a considerable time 
to examine this part of the country, step by step; they would furnish a work of the high¬ 
est interest.” 
Again, in speaking of the sandstone (No. 1,) which forms the “Stone Walls,” about 
thirty miles above the mouth of the Judith River, page 236: “This sandstone formation 
is the most striking when it forms the tops of more isolated mountains, separated by gentle 
valleys and ravines. Here on both sides of the river, the most strange forms are seen, 
and you may fancy that you see colonnades, small round pillars, with large globes or a flat 
slab at the top, little towers, pulpits, organs with their pipes, old ruins, fortresses, castles, 
churches with pointed towers, &c., &c.; almost every mountain bearing on its summit some 
similar structure.” 
Lieutenant Grover, United States Army, in his Report* to Governor Stevens, thus speaks 
of this region :—“On leaving camp to-day, we took leave for a while of many wild beauties 
of nature which lay scattered along the river in an ever-varying panorama, to take a view 
of the other side of the picture of Nature’s wild deformities, a master-piece in its way. 
The Mauvaises Terres or Bad Lands which this section is very appropriately called, are 
characterized by a total absence of any thing which could by any possibility give pleasure 
to the eye or gratification to the mind, by any associations of utility. Not an island nor 
a shrub of any account—nothing but high bare piles of mud, towering up as high as they 
can stand, and crowding each other for room. The banks, varying from 200 to 300 feet 
in height, were of this nature on both sides of the river all day.” 
The external features of the country have thus been described with great accuracy and 
fulness, but none of these writers seem to have given us any clue to the geological age of 
these deposits. During the writer’s explorations of this region in the summer of 1855, he 
observed the basin-like form of this deposit and the limited area which it occupied, also the 
difference in its lithological character from the Cretaceous strata which surrounded it, 
and the Miocene beds which reach their most northern limit, some distance below the 
mouth of the Muscle Shell River. 
From a small collection of vertebrate fossils made at that time, and placed in the hands 
of Dr. Leidy for examination, he (Dr. L.) was inclined to the opinion that the deposit in 
which these remains were found was of the age of the Wealden of Europe. Many species 
of Molluscous fossils were also obtained, but as they seemed more allied to Tertiary than 
Wealden types, the evidence became conflicting in its character. I will, however, present 
all the facts as yet secured in regard to its age or position, leaving the final determination to 
be made after a more thorough and detailed exploration which I hope to accomplish during 
* Pacific R. It. Report, Vol. I., page 492. 
VOL. XI.— 17 
