Note 64 — Chapter XXX · RETURN FROM FORT CLARKE TO THE CANTONMENT OF LEAVENWORTH, FROM APRIL 18TH TO MAY 18TH

This tract was the area later famous as the Bad Lands of White River. Had Maximilian been able to visit this region, he might have antedated the discoveries made by J. V. Hayden and F. B. Meek, which awakened much interest in the scientific world. This area, extending nearly five hundred miles in each direction, lies between Cheyenne and White rivers east of the Black Hills. It is a tertiary formation of indurated sands, clays, and marl, cut up into ravines and cañons by streams and climatic action. In certain places it takes on the form of a gigantic city in ruins. To the scientist, however, the chief interest is its fossils, immense numbers of which are imbedded in the formation. The first descriptive account was that of Dr. H. A. Prout, who visited the region in 1847, given in the American Journal of Science, iii, 2d series, pp. 248-250. Two years later, Dr. John Evans went through this district, and the next year it was visited by Thaddeus A. Culbertson in the interest of the Smithsonian Institution. A thorough examination was made in 1853 by J. V. Hayden and F. B. Meek; the former passed through again in 1857, the results being embodied in American Philosophical Society Transactions, xii, new series (Phila., 1863). The fossil remains were described by Professor Joseph Leidy in Contributions to Extinct Vertebræ Fauna (Washington, 1873). Hayden made still another visit to this region in 1866, the results of which were published in his Geographical and Geological Survey of the Territories. The White River Bad Lands are still difficult of access, and not as yet visited by tourists.—Ed.