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National Geographic : 1947 May
Contents
Big Game Hunting in the Land of Long Ago BY JosEPH P. CONNOLLY AND JAMES D. BUMP President, and Director of the Museum, respectively, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology CAN you imagine a hunting expedition of nine men fully equipped for three months in the field, but having orders not to kill anything and not to "bring 'em back alive"? Such an expedition, under the joint spon sorship of the National Geographic Society and the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, left Rapid City on a morning in early June in search of museum specimens of rhinoceros, saber-toothed tiger, giant pig, the antelopelike Protoceras, tapir, horse, and any other game that might be encountered. But this game had lived, died, and been buried some thirty millions of years ago. The hunting ground was the Badlands of South Dakota, and the quarry was the fossil bones entombed in the rocks of that area. When this region southeast of the Black Hills was subtropical, wet, and covered with jungle growth, small, mouselike rodents and tiny lizards lived here as neighbors to huge hornless rhinoceroses. Three-toed horses, small camels without humps, tiny deer, giant swine, and many other forms grazed side by side, ever on the alert for such deadly foes as predaceous dogs and saber-toothed tigers. Region Deserves Better Name It was the American Indian, earliest human inhabitant of South Dakota, who first applied the name "Badlands" to this area, as he found it relatively dry and deeply eroded. He called it "Makosica" (mako, land; sica, bad). The early French-Canadian trapper avoided the region when he could because of the diffi culties of travel. He could not improve on the Indian name and referred to the area as "Mauvaises Terres." Likewise, the western pioneer could see little value in land so roughly battle-scarred by Nature; with a literal trans lation he adopted the early name, and it is so known today. In some respects the name is unfortunate, as it has given rise to many misconceptions. One evening in camp the senior author read to the members of the expedition a description of the Badlands that had recently appeared in a Sunday newspaper: "The visitor's fancy is taken even further back into the past by the twisted, tortured, barren Badlands. They are a no man's land of unimaginable desolation, where not even a sheep could find a liveli hood." Grins of derision spread through the group. And one man muttered, "Armchair travel writer." As we glanced over the floor of the valley where we were camped, we saw spread out before us a brilliant carpet. Golden-yellow cactus blossoms, the white of the evening primrose and the mariposa lily, and the bright splashes of the scarlet mallow, all were set in a background of abundant rich grass. Not far from camp grazed herds of sleek, well-fed horses and cattle, and that day we had seen two huge flocks of sheep. "Table-tops" and Valleys Fertile It is true that the severely eroded slopes and pinnacles of the Badlands are barren, but thousands of acres on the upland tables and the larger valley floors are level and fertile. Much of this area is covered with wild grasses, which afford good grazing for stock. The animals' drinking water is obtained from the rivers, from the numerous springs near the tops of the tablelands, from shallow wells, or from ponds formed by small rain-conserving dams. Thousands of acres are planted each year to wheat, oats, flax, corn, and other crops, and have yielded abundantly in spite of the semiarid conditions. Gradually people are losing their timidity regarding the country, and each year thou sands of travelers plan their trips so that they may see something of its weird beauty. How did these Badlands originate? Why the profusion of grotesque, rough topography? Why did so many prehistoric animals find a grave here? How were these entombed bones so perfectly preserved that now we may un earth them and decipher the fascinating his tory of the geologic past? The story would be much too long for these pages if we started with the time when life first existed on this planet, more than a billion years ago. Let us turn to one of the later chapters in the geologic history of the earth, the Oligocene epoch of the Tertiary period. As time is measured by the geologist, this chapter begins "recently," thirty to forty mil lions of years ago! The general outline of the continent had then reached about its present form, and life had passed through more than 90 percent of its evolutionary stages. The midwestern United States had just been freed from a great inland sea. Several hun-
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