Buffalo Land Part 17

Descending the side of a deep, desolate rift in the earth, we found ourselves among unmistakable traces of violent volcanic action. The ground was strewn with black sand, and with yellow pebble-like ma.s.ses, apparently impure sulphur. There were numerous round cones also, looking like diminutive craters, with edges and surface composed of bubble-like lava, the material having evidently hardened while still distended by the struggling gases. The appearance, to use a homely comparison, was somewhat that of several low pots, over the edges of which boiling mola.s.ses had poured, and then burned by the heat of the fire. Some scattered objects, which at first we took for stumps of huge trees, upon examination we found to be pillars of mud and rock, upheavals, apparently, from volcanic action, and not the work of the floods, which, in those primeval times, we knew, must have poured down the valley. They would have answered, without much difficulty, for druidical altars, had we only been in the land once inhabited by those long-bearded, blood-thirsty priests of old.

Two or three poisoned cayotes and a dead raven were lying near some bleached buffalo skulls, on which, as we presently discovered, daubs of lard mixed with strychnine had been placed, and licked off by the victims; and straightway, as genius of the scene, an unshaven, woolen-shirted little man appeared in view, busily engaged in skinning a wolf. We saluted him, and the response in French-English told us his nationality at once. We found his name to be Louis, and his proper occupation that of watchmaker. But as the pinchbeck time-pieces of the frontier did not furnish enough repairing to take up his entire time, he had many spare hours, and these he devoted to securing pelts. As buffalo were not now in the vicinity, he larded their bones, with the success of which we were eye-witnesses.

Louis was a wiry little Gaul, very positive in his ideas about every thing. An animated conversation sprang up at once between him and the Professor, and it soon became amusingly evident that his geological ideas did not entirely accord with those of the Philosopher. A sudden turn in the colloquy developed a fact of keen interest to even the most unscientific member of our party.

Pointing to the other side of the valley, Louis told us that there lay the bones of an immense snake, all turned to stone. This sudden voice from the past ages sounded in the Professor's ears like the blare of a trumpet to a warrior. He hurried us forward in the direction indicated, and, locking arms with the b.l.o.o.d.y-shirted little Frenchman, strode on in advance. I wish his cla.s.s could have seen him thus traversing the desolate bed where that old sunken volcano went to sleep. We were glad that the latter was still asleep, and had never acquired the habit of snorting into wakefulness, and pelting explorers with hot rocks.

What mysteries, I have often thought, might we not discover, on looking down the throat of a healthy volcano, if some wise alchemist could only brew a dose sufficiently powerful to stop the fiery fellow's foaming at the mouth! Or, better still, if it could reach the bowels of the earth, and keep the whole system quiet, while we, puny mortals, like trichina mites, swarmed down the interior, and bored scientifically back to the crust again. Earth's veins run golden blood, and we might be gorged with that, perhaps, ere making exit into the sunshine again.

A shout from the further edge of the ravine cut short our speculations, and called our attention to the Professor. He stood waving his slouched hat for an instant, and then bent close over the ground, in earnest scrutiny.

A few moments later, and we all stood beside the huge fossil. It lay exposed, upon a bed of slate, looking very much like a seventy-foot serpent, carved in stone. Part of the remains had been taken up to the town, and spread over the bench, in the shop of Louis. From what was left, the jaws appeared to have been originally over six feet long, the sharp hooked and cone-shaped teeth being still very perfect. A few broad fragments of ribs showed that, in circ.u.mference, the animal's body had been about the size of a puncheon. We felt confident that the specimen was a very rare one, as Muggs had never seen any thing like it, even in England. It now rests in the museum at Cambridge, Ma.s.sachusetts.

"This fossil, gentlemen," said the Professor, "is that of a _Mosasaurus_, a huge reptile which existed in the cretaceous sea. This appears to be one of the largest members of the family yet discovered, its length, as you will perceive, being over fifty feet. The species to which it belonged swarmed in immense numbers, but were surrounded by monsters even more remarkable than they. The deep which they inhabited must have been constantly lashed and torn with their fierce conflicts; for it was an age of war, and the powers of offense and defense, which the monsters of that period possessed, were terrible. Winged reptiles filled the air, in appearance more hideous than any creation of the imagination. Following close upon the Reptilian came the Mammalian age, and I hold that with the largest of the mammals came man, rude in tastes and uncouth in form, but even then ruling as king of the animal creation. Wielded by a strength equal to that of a gorilla, his club would dash in the skull of any beast which dare dispute dominion with him."

The text thus suggested him, the Professor then diverged into an argument on his pet theory of man's early existence.

A trivial circ.u.mstance connected with our discovery arrested my attention, and, from a sportsman's stand-point, suggested a little theory of my own. The head of the saurian rested on the basin's edge, its jaws touching, with their stony tips, the prairie, while down into the valley below stretched the body and tail. This little fact dove-tailed itself into some incidents of the past, and gave rise to quite a train of speculation.

Some years ago I hunted alligators in Mississippi. Sitting on the bank of a sluggish bayou, I would watch the surface of the water, close under which were visible the noses of countless buffalo fish, floating as one sees minnows do in gla.s.s jars. Under the hot sun all nature seemed asleep. Soon, however, a black knot, an ugly dark wart, not larger than one's two fists, would make its appearance, floating, like some charred fragment, slowly along.

To a stranger, the only suspicious circ.u.mstance would have been, that where there was no current whatever, it still continued its motion, the same as before. The experienced eye recognized this object as the nose of an alligator, behind which, and just at the surface, as it got opposite, the ugly eyes would become visible, looking out for hogs or dogs, as they came to drink under the bank.

I never had the patience to wait for the _finale_ of the scene; but had I done so, I should have beheld the knot float closer in, and, just after pa.s.sing the victim, a tail would have come out of the water, and, with a curving blow forward, knocked the prize out from sh.o.r.e, and in front of the devourer's jaws. It was my good fortune, frequently, to send a Ballard rifle-ball into the pirate's eyes. In such cases there was usually a tremendous commotion in the water, accompanied by a strong smell of musk, and the wounded reptile would then make straight for sh.o.r.e, and run his head upon it. Under such circ.u.mstances, the creature always sought at least that much of dry land to die upon, seeming as anxious as man that its lamp of life should not be extinguished under water.

This monster whose remains we were now exhuming was allied to the alligator, as one of the great family of lizards, and had died in the same manner--his head on the sh.o.r.es of the basin, his tail in its depths. Perhaps in the convulsion of Nature which opened a path for the waters to the ocean, and drained this inland sea, the fissure in which we stood had gaped, and exhaled poisonous gases through the whirlpool its suction created. The saurian monster of that strange age felt the hungry vortex swallowing him, which meanwhile enveloped him in deadly secretions, killing before devouring. With a last lurch through the cauldron's ebbing tide, the lizard threw himself upon its edge, and died.

Of the countless millions of saurians then existing, capricious Nature had seized upon this one, to trans.m.u.te it into an imperishable monument of that extinct race. In those ages of roaring waters and hissing fires, she had clothed the bones in stone, that they might withstand the gnawing tooth of time, and thus handed them down to the wondering eyes of the Nineteenth Century. Many of the pieces, it should be said, were cracked and scarred, evidently by the action of fierce heat.

Constantly the earth is giving up these marvelous creations of the past, in comparison with which the animals of the present are tame enough.

While we doubt a modern sea-serpent as impossible, we dig up fossilized marine monsters, which could easily have swallowed the biggest snake that credible sea-captain ever ran foul of.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DUG-OUT.]

CHAPTER XXIII.

FROM SHERIDAN TO THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS--THE COLORADO PORTION OF THE PLAINS--THE GIANT PINES--ATTEMPT TO PHOTOGRAPH A BUFFALO--THINGS GET MIXED--THE LEVIATHAN AT HOME--A CHAT WITH PROFESSOR COPE--TWENTY-SIX INCH OYSTERS--REPTILES AND FISHES OF THE CRETACEOUS SEA.

At Sheridan, we were very near the Colorado portion of the plain, which stretched on for some hundreds of miles further westward, its further line lapping the base of the Rocky Mountains. Into this territory we pa.s.sed, and spent a considerable period of time in its examination, but while our experience was to us full of interest, any thing more extended than a brief summary would occupy too much s.p.a.ce here.

For the first one hundred miles, the soil deteriorated in quality, and the sage-bush made its appearance, as did also the "Adam's needle" or "Spanish bayonet." The latter makes an excellent subst.i.tute for soup, but a wretched cushion to alight upon when thrown from your horse. (I make the latter statement on the authority of Doctor Pythagoras.) Brackish water was found at intervals, and white saline crystallizations were seen along some of the streams. Although the soil was more sandy than further east, the buffalo gra.s.s was abundant and nutritious, so that at no time had we any difficulty in finding grazing for our cattle, and the antelope that we killed were invariably in good condition. This belt of eastern Colorado proved particularly rich in fossil wealth, to the description of which we shall devote most of this chapter, and the whole of that following. In the vicinity of the Big Sandy, we found numerous lakes of clear water, surrounded by rich pasturage.

About one hundred miles west of the Kansas line, the country began gradually improving, and continued to do so until we reached the mountains. The Bijou basin, through which we pa.s.sed, afforded excellent range, and contained good streams. The country swarmed with antelopes, and once we saw a herd running rapidly, which was four minutes in crossing the road.

We had fine views of Pike's Peak, at a distance of one hundred and fifty miles, the atmosphere there being remarkably pure and transparent.

Emigrants have often been deceived when, as their wagons crawled over the crest which we named First View, the fine old Peak burst upon their sight, and in their enthusiasm resolved to get an early start next day and reach it before another night-fall. Our guide told us that when he first crossed the plains, by the Platte route, his party camped for the night near Monument Rock. After supper, two of the men and a woman set out to cut their names in the stone, supposing it to be only a mile or so distant, but when an hour's traveling brought the rock apparently no nearer, they became discouraged and returned. Next day Monument Rock was found to be twelve miles distant from their camping-place.

When within a day's journey of the mountains, we came in sight of several tall objects standing out in bold relief upon the plain. These proved to be giant pines, thrown out, like sentinels, from the forests still far beyond and invisible. We could not resist the impulse to give the first one we came to a hearty hug; for, after so many weeks upon the treeless plain, these suggestions of mighty forests, with their mingled sheen and shadow, were indeed welcome. The mountains of Colorado, with their beautiful parks and wonderful young cities, have been so often described that our notes would prove a useless addition to a somewhat worn history, and hence we forbear taxing the reader's patience by transcribing them here.

After studying the principles of mining and irrigation, we spent in the neighborhood of one calendar month in getting views of sunrise and sunset, from all the known peaks, to the end that no future tourist might feel called upon to extend to us his kind commiseration for having lost some particular outlook, where he had been, and which he considered the best of all. To accomplish this thoroughly, we hewed paths up hitherto inaccessible mountains, and at the end of the month made a close calculation, and decided that we were a match for all such tourists for at least five years to come. We then retraced our steps to Buffalo Land, again entering the fossil belt near Fort Wallace.

One incident of our trip into Colorado deserves especial mention from having been the first, as it will probably prove the last, attempt to photograph the buffalo in his native wildness, at close quarters. The idea was suggested in a letter which the Professor received from his Eastern friends, who thought that actual photographs of the animals inhabiting the plains would be a valuable addition to the ordinary facilities for the study of natural history. As good fortune would have it, there happened to be at Sheridan an artist, just arrived from Hays, then prospecting for a location, and him we promptly engaged. The second day out, two old buffaloes, near our road, were selected as good subjects for first views. One of these was soon killed, the other making his escape up a ravine near by. Although we had good reason to suspect that the latter had been wounded, we did not pursue him, since it was now near noon, and our artist, moreover, being of a somewhat timid disposition, had expressly stipulated that we should keep near him, not so much, he repeatedly a.s.sured us, as a body-guard for himself, as for the protection of his new camera and outfit.

The dead bull we propped into position with our guns and other supports, and while the artist carefully adjusted his instrument, Shamus began to make preparations for lunch, and Mr. Colon and Semi set out for a few minutes' pastime in catching bugs. They had been gone a full half hour, and we were just remarking their prolonged absence somewhat impatiently, when a loud cry from the nearer bank of the ravine fell on our ears, and looking around we beheld Colon senior, and ditto junior, making toward us at a tremendous rate of speed.

"Buffalo!" was all that we could catch of Semi's wild shouts, as he led the chase directly toward us, his father having lost several seconds in securing one of his specimen-cases, and on the instant the old bull that we had wounded an hour before hove in sight, in full charge upon the flying entomologists. As buffalo charges are short ones, he would have stopped, no doubt, in a moment or so, had not Muggs and I, the only members of our party who happened to have their guns at hand, opened fire on him, and planted another bullet between his ribs. The effect was to infuriate the old fellow tenfold, and down he came careering toward us, with what I then thought the most vicious expression of countenance I had ever seen on a buffalo's physiognomy.

The attack was so sudden, and the surprise so complete, that we were most ingloriously stampeded, and fell back in hot haste upon our reserves, the guide and teamsters, who, we knew, would be provided with weapons and in good shape to cover our retreat. The sitting for which we had made such elaborate preparations was abruptly terminated in the manner shown in the accompanying engraving.

Fortunately for the artist, the blow originally intended for him was delivered upon the legs of the instrument. His a.s.sailant being at length dispatched, the poor fellow proceeded to pick out of the ruins of his property what remained that might again be useful. He stated that his stock, as well as the subject of buffalo photographing, was "rather mixed," and that, if we would pay him for the damage done, he would return. Next morning he left us, and thus it was that science lost the projected series of valuable photographic views.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TAKING AND BEING TAKEN.]

Exploration gives us a past history of the plains which is interesting in the extreme. Our party spent some weeks in exploring for fossils beyond Sheridan, and were richly rewarded. In the great ocean which once covered the land, the wonderful reptiles of the cretaceous age swarmed in prodigious numbers, and their fierce struggles upon and under its surface made "the deep to boil like a pot." The mysterious Leviathan, described in the forty-first chapter of Job, had its prototype in more than one of the monsters of that period:

"Who can open the doors of his face? his teeth are terrible round about.

"Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out.

"Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot or caldron.

"His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth.

"The flakes of his flesh are joined together: they are firm in themselves; they can not be moved.

"He esteemeth iron as straw, and bra.s.s as rotten wood.

"He maketh a path to shine after him; one would think the deep to be h.o.a.ry."

The fossil remains of these reptiles are numerous, const.i.tuting a rich mine of scientific wealth, which has been but very lightly worked.

Enough fossils can be obtained by future exploration to fill to overflowing all the museums of the land.

We have no means of computing how long the cretaceous sea existed, but we know that it pa.s.sed away and was replaced by large fresh-water lakes, those of the plains being bounded on the west by the Rocky Mountains. Then succeeded an age of which we can catch but occasional glimpses, and our longing becomes intense that we could know more. We see a land fertile as the garden of Eden, surrounding beautiful lakes.

The climate is delightful, and earth, air, and water, are full of life.

Grand forests and flower-covered prairies nod and blossom under the kind caresses of Nature. Water fowls numberless plunge under and skim over the surface, and the songsters of the air warble forth their hymns of praise. Over the pastures and through the forests roam an animal mult.i.tude of which we can have but faint conception, but among the number we recognize the lion with his royal mane, and the tiger with his spots; and there also are the elephant, the mastodon, the rhinoceros, the wild horse, and the great elk.

After our return, the eminent naturalist, Prof. Edward D. Cope, A. M., visited the plains, and spent some time in careful exploration there. As he had previously received several fossils from us for examination, I communicated with him not long since, asking a record of his trip. This he very kindly consented to furnish, and, did s.p.a.ce permit, I would gladly publish entire the matter which he has placed at my disposal. No apology can be necessary, however, for yielding to the temptation of devoting two or three chapters to a chat by Prof. Cope with my readers.

The ma.n.u.script, as it lies before me, is ent.i.tled: "On the Geology and Vertebrate Palaeontology of the Cretaceous Strata of Kansas." Let us begin with "Part I--A General Sketch of the Ancient Life."

That vast level tract of our territory lying between Missouri and the Rocky Mountains represents a condition of the earth's surface which has preceded, in most instances, the mountainous or hilly type so prevalent elsewhere, and may be called, in so far, incompletely developed. It does not present the variety of conditions, either of surface for the support of a very varied life, or of opportunities for access to its interior treasures, so beneficial to a high civilization.

It is, in fact, the old bed of seas and lakes, which has been so gradually elevated as to have suffered little disturbance. Consistently with its level surface, its soils have not been carried away by rain and flood, but rather cover it with a deep and widespread mantle. This is the great source of its wealth in Nature's creations of vegetable and animal life, and from it will be drawn the wealth of its future inhabitants. On this account its products have a character of uniformity; but viewed from the stand-point of the political philosopher, so long as peace and steam bind the natural sections of our country together, so long will the plains be an important element in a varied economy of continental extent.