The ancient fauna of Nebraska: a description of remains of extinct mammalia and chelonia, from the Mauvaises Terres of Nebraska . Pt. I., Zool. Mam., curvidens, Owen. Leidy: Proc. Ac. Nat. Sc, 1847, III. 262. See Proceedings of the American Association, at Cambridge, 1849, II. 352. See the map accompanying this memoir, for the use of which I am indebted to Dr. D. D. Owen.* P. 196. INTRODUCTION. 11 From the high prairies that rise in the back-ground, by a series of terracestowards the spurs of the Rocky Mountains, the traveller looks down into an exten-sive valley,^that may be said to
The ancient fauna of Nebraska: a description of remains of extinct mammalia and chelonia, from the Mauvaises Terres of Nebraska . Pt. I., Zool. Mam., curvidens, Owen. Leidy: Proc. Ac. Nat. Sc, 1847, III. 262. See Proceedings of the American Association, at Cambridge, 1849, II. 352. See the map accompanying this memoir, for the use of which I am indebted to Dr. D. D. Owen.* P. 196. INTRODUCTION. 11 From the high prairies that rise in the back-ground, by a series of terracestowards the spurs of the Rocky Mountains, the traveller looks down into an exten-sive valley,^that may be said to constitute a world of its own, and which appearsto have been formed, partly by an extensive vertical fault, partly by the long con-tinued influence of denudation. The valley is about ninety miles in length, and thirty in breadth, and stretchesaway, westwardly, towards the base of the dark gloomy range of mountains, theBlack Hills. Its most depressed portion is about three hundred feet below thegeneral level of the surrounding country, and is covered by a soil, similar to thatof the higher ground, supporting scanty View of the Mauvaises Terres.—From the Geological Report of Dr. Owen. To the surrounding country, however, the Mauvaises Terres joresent the moststriking contrast. From the uniform, monotonous, open prairie, the traveller sud-denly descends, one or two hundred feet, into a valley that looks as if it had sunkaway from the contiguous world; leang standing, all over the surface, thousandsof abrupt, irregular, prisniatic, and columnar masses, frequently capped with irre-gular pyramids, and extending to a height of one or two hundred feet, or more. So thickly are these natural towers studded over the surface of this extraor-dinary region, that the traveller threads his way through deep, confined, labyrin-thine passages, not unlike the narrow irregular streets and lanes of some quaintold town of the European continent. Viewed in the distance, indeed, these rock
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