should some day form into hordes like the nomadic peoples, half shepherd, half warrior, who range the plateaus of Asia with their herds, is it not to be feared that in time others may organize themselves into bands of robbers and assassins, with the swift horses of the prairies for coursers, the desert for the theater of their brigandage, and inaccessible rocks for a safe refuge for their lives and their booty?
On the 31st of May we camped two miles and a half from one of the most remarkable curiosities of this savage region. It is a cone-shaped eminence of not far from a league in circumference, gashed by many ravines and
standing upon a smooth plain. From the summit of this hill rises a square shaft, thirty to forty feet through by 150 in height; the form of this column has given it the name of the Chimney; it is 175 yards above the plain, and may be Percéived from thirty miles away. The Chimney is composed of clay in a petrified state, interspersed with layers of white and grayish sandstone. It seems to be the remnant of a lofty mountain which the winds and the storms have been wearing down for ages; a few years more and this great natural curiosity will crumble away and make only a little heap on the plain; for when it is examined near at hand, an enormous crack appears in its top.' In the neighborhood of this wonder, all the hills present a singular aspect; some have the appearance of towers, castles and fortified cities. From a little distance, one can hardly persuade himself that art is not mingled in
them with the fantasies of nature. Bands of the ashata, an animal called also grosse-come, or bighorn, have their abode in the midst of these bad lands. The Chimney, with its castles and fantastic cities, forms the termination of a high
ridge, which runs from south to north. We found a narrow passage through between two perpendicular cliffs 3oo feet in height.
9 The Chimney, though still crumbling, remains a conspicuous object in i903.