File:The great Northwest - a guide-book and itinerary for the use of tourists and travellers over the lines of the Northern Pacific Railroad, the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company and the Oregon and (14735838476).jpg

Identifier: greatnorthwestgu00wins (find matches)
Title: The great Northwest : a guide-book and itinerary for the use of tourists and travellers over the lines of the Northern Pacific Railroad, the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company and the Oregon and California Railroad : containing descriptions of states, territories, cities, towns, and places along the routes of these allied systems of transportation, and embracing facts relating to the history, resources, population, products, and natural features of the great Northwest
Year: 1883 (1880s)
Authors: Winser, Henry Jacob, 1823-1896
Subjects: Northern Pacific Railroad Company Oregon Railway and Navigation Company Oregon and California Railroad
Publisher: New York : G.P. Putnam's Sons
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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are blue, brown and gray. There are also many of theseelevations which, in the hazy distance, seem like ocean billows stiffenedand at rest. Between these curiously shaped and vari-colored mounds there aresharp ravines and gulches which are often the beds of shallow streams.Here and there are broader spaces, covered with rich grass and fleckedwith a growth of ground juniper of delicious fragrance. No trees worthyof the name are seen, but a fringe of gnarled and misshapen pinesoccasionally presents itself along the water channels. In ages long ago,however, dense forests existed in these Bad Lands. There is evidence ofthis primeval growth in the abundant petrifactions of tree stumps, four toeight feet in diameter, which are in portions translucent as rock crystals,and susceptible of as high a polish. Fine specimens of fossil leaves, of thePliocene age, changed by the heat of the burning lignite into a brilliantscarlet, but retaining their reticulations perfect, are also found. The coal,
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Buttes in Pyramid Park. The Bad Lands* i31 still burning, gives a Plutonic aspect to the whole region, one fiery massnot far from the railroad, being easily mistaken at night for an active vol-cano, the cliffs having close resemblance to volcanic scoria. Among themany other fossil remains are oysters, clams and crustaceans. The seekerfor geological curiosities has here a fine field in which to work. The term Bad Lands, as applied to this region, is a gross misnomer.It conveys the idea that the tract is worthless for agricultural or stockraising purposes. Nothing could be wider of the truth. The fact is, thesoil possesses fertilizing properties in excess, and the luxuriant grasseswhich here flourish attract herbivorous game animals in large numbers.The designation Bad Lands is derived from the times of the old Frenchwyageurs, who, in their trapping and hunting expeditions in the service ofthe great fur companies, described the region as mauvaises terres pourtraverser, meaning that it w

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