A Brief History of South Dakota

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A BRIEF HISTORY OF SOUTH DAKOTA

CHAPTER I

THE STORY TOLD BY THE ROCKS

It is very easy to read the story of the rocks in South Dakota, for here more than anywhere else the several formations are exposed to view, and we will be able to readily see what must have happened in that time very long ^go, before men, or even animals, inhabited the Dakota land. The rock formations can be seen more or less all over the place the state, but their story is clearly shown especially in that section near the head waters of the White River at the foot of the Black Hills, known as the Bad Lands.

We learn there that in an ancient time a great ocean rolled over South Dakota; that some great convulsion must have occurred deep in the earth which threw up the Black Hills and other western mountains; that the ocean swept over these hills, grinding them up and washing them down across its floor toward the eastern part of the state, thus laying down a formation or stratum now compressed into hard rock which is the lowest of the many formations studied by the geologist. We learn that again and again the rocks and hills were raised up, each time to be

washed down by the ocean, each washing making a new stratum, until in spite of everything there came a time when the ocean could not overcome the hills and the latter became high and solid earth somewhat as we now know them. In this time the earliest evidences of life appeared, in the form of snails and other low orders of creatures.

Then the ocean seems to have come back and swept -iown another stratum of soil from the mountain bases, and after it had again subsided came a race of monstrous reptiles, the remains of which are found quite generally over the state wherever the formation of that period is exposed. It is quite certain that at this time South Dakota was in the main a vast steaming swamp, for the climate was tropical, and out of the swamp grew tropical verdure.

For how long the reptiles reigned no one can ever know, but their period was followed by another, in which great animals, much larger than anything now in existence, roamed all over the land. They have been given hard names by scientific men who study their remains; as titanotheres, brontotheres, and eleotheres. The titano-thercs and brontotheres were evidently of the elephant or rhinoceros family, and the eleotheres were giant pigs. Whilst remains of these animals are most common in the Bad Lands, they are found in many other localities, showing that they roamed generally all over the state. At this time we will be able to be very sure, from the signs which are left, that South Dakota was a great swampy, tropical plain which sloped gently down from the Black Hills on the west to the great central river flowing through the

present James River valley, and from this river sloped up to the top of the coteau at the east line of the state.

By this time several agencies were at work which resulted in a great change in the climate of the region. The uphfting of the Black Hills and the Rocky Mountains had bring to an end the warm breezes from the Pacific Ocean, and in the far north vast heaps of ice were being piled up by the almost continual freezing of the frigid climate. These heaps of ice had become so deep that they could not strengthen their own weight, and so began to run or spread out as you may have seen a large lump of dough spread when turned from the kneading pan to the table. When we examine a piece of ice, it sort of feels to be so hard and brittle that it does not seem conceivable for ice to spread in this way; however, scientific men have shown beyond doubt that ice does spread when placed under a great weight.

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