Forest physiography; physiography of the United States and principles of soils in relation to forestry . etc. The badlands were at first thought to be quiteuninhabitable, the name itself being derived from the French nameMauvaises Terres applied by the early hunters and trappers. Thephrase is meant to signify a country difficult to cross, chiefly because 1 F. H. H. Calhoun, The Montana Lake of the Keewatin Ice Sheet, Prof. Paper U. S. No. 50, 1906. G-REAT PLAINS 415 of the rugged surface and the general lack of water. Later explora-tion and development have shown that much the great
Forest physiography; physiography of the United States and principles of soils in relation to forestry . etc. The badlands were at first thought to be quiteuninhabitable, the name itself being derived from the French nameMauvaises Terres applied by the early hunters and trappers. Thephrase is meant to signify a country difficult to cross, chiefly because 1 F. H. H. Calhoun, The Montana Lake of the Keewatin Ice Sheet, Prof. Paper U. S. No. 50, 1906. G-REAT PLAINS 415 of the rugged surface and the general lack of water. Later explora-tion and development have shown that much the greater portion of thearea within the badlands is level and fertile and covered with abundantgrass; and that water may be obtained, especially on the higher tables,by sinking shallow wells in the surface mantle of gravel. As a wholethe region has considerable agricultural and grazing importance. The chief factors controlling the development of the badlands topog-raphy have been the great extent of slightly consolidated, fine-grainedstrata lying at a considerable altitude above the sea in a region of low. Fig. 149. — Details of Badlands in Brule clay at foot of Scotts Bluff, Nebraska. (U. S. Geol. Surv.) rainfall and sparse vegetation. The scarcity of deep-rooted vegetationenables the soft material to be rather easily eroded. While short grassesare abundant over large areas they do not have deep root penetrationand do not form a sufficiently continuous cover to prevent is a small amount of vegetation of a higher order, but it is evenless effective than the grass in preventing the formation of gullies. Afew gnarled cedars occur on the highest points and bushes of variouskinds occur in the valley floors in favorable places, but they offer littleobstruction to the development of the gulches and canyons which diver-sify the scarped margins of the area. 416 FOREST PHYSIOGRAPHY It is also noteworthy that the rainfall is more or less concentratedinto heavy showers of short d
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