THE WEST SHORE.
813
trunks of large trees transformed, apparently, into solid
(jnnrt?!. Thar are thousands of thw; it is difficult to
travel without meeting them. Petrified stumps of four
and five feet in diameter are quite common, and some are
from six to eight feet in diameter. When in place they
stand erect in the soil in the position they once grew."
This particular locality is not the only one presenting
these physical characteristics. Between Miles City and
Glendive the road passes through many miles of a forma
tion very similar but not quite so marked, and on the
upper Missouri, above the mouth of Judith River, the
Dad Lands and Castellated Rocks have long boon objects
of interest to travelers. It is, however, in Pyramid Park
the most fantastic shapes appear.
Every form of man or benat,
The broad empire of Home oimlil furninh,
is here carved by the elements and placed in one long
gallery of art Monuments, cathedrals, pyramids, cones
and houses appear like excavations of a buried city.
Loud reports are frequently heard, resembling much the
sound of distant cannon, not only here but in other places
of a similar formation. These explosions, the smoke and
heat from burning coal, and the weird forms and figures,
appealed to the superstitious nature of the Indians, and
led them to believe this region the abode of evil spirits.
This, added to the fact that it was difficult to pass through
them because of their broken nature, caused them to
assure the early French trappers that it was a bad coun
try. In the latter respect the whites found the re)ort to
lw true, and called them "Mauvaes Torres pour ira-
emir," which was soon contracted to Muuvaws Torres,
or Bad Lands. In an agricultural sense this is far from
being the case, for the soil on top of the buttes and bluffs
and on the high prairie lands lying lwtwoen and around
the different groups of those peculiar formations is ex
tremely fertile. Large herds of cattle and bands of
sheep are grazed in and about the Bad Lands, and this is
the headquarters of the Marquis de Mores, the originator
of the business of slaughtering beef on the ranges and
shipping it East in refrigerator cars. This business is a
growing one, and the Marquis has facilities for conduct
ing it at various places along the Northern Pacific in
Dakota and Montana.
FIREPLACE ORNAMENTS.
!MIE employment cf plants fjr tho decoratiaa cf tho
fireplaces in the principal apartments is steadily
increasing, and much might le said in its favor, for,
when the plants are appropriate and tastefully arranged,
they present a far more attractive appearance than any
of tho so-called grato ornaments. The most useful
plants are such as afford striking forms and pleasing
tones of groon or variegated foliage. Tho palms, Dra
cii'nas, grasses and miscellaneous "foliage'' plants of
neat and, geuerally speaking, light habit should predomi
nate lumpy plants presenting largo surfaces aro not
suitable and there must Imj a fair proportion of colors
to light up tho group. For this purjMmo tho flowers
should bo choice as well as showy. A general objection
may be urged against all kinds of bedding plants as un
suitable; tho same principle should Im) followed in select
ing the flowers as tho leaves, form and a certain airiness
of stylo being of great iuqMirtauco. Hence a neat tuft of
white Marguerites jwcping out from among grassy leaf
age will Ims far preferable to a scarlet geranium. Many
greenhouse plants answer admirably for this kind of
decoration, which novor need lw costly, but must always
bo tasteful, and combine richness and delicacy without
any strong display of color. A simple procedure that
may or may not answer, as tho case may be, consists in
covering tho back of tho grato with cheap thin mwt of A
very dark green color and putting it on as much crumpled
as possible, so as to 1h practically invisible, to afford a
kind of distance rather than a background, lU real pur
pose being to conceal ugly iron work and to prevent the
intrusion into tho midst of tho plants of any such feat
ures. Tho plants must bo all clean and dry when placed
in position, but tho soil in tho ihU should bo moist
enough to carry them through for a few days, when a
change must Ixi made for the sako of tho plants.
NEWSPAPER HYPERBOLE.
WITH a certain class of newspapers, when a barn
blows down, there will first be a diagram of the
nreminfts: view of the barn before being blown down;
view of the barn while being blown down; view of the
ruins; interview with the hired man, who said he always
knowod it was a-coinc to blow down; interview with tho
owner, with his and other theories on barns blowing
down; interview with Professor Mugwump, the aisun
miiW riiicniro savant with hi views as to the reason
why barns blow down rather than up; comparative table
of barn mortality for the lost Torty years, showing jm.
i-flnfjitrn nf barns blowing down comimrod with the illiter
ate vote; history of lmrns from the earliest times to the
present; statement of loss, foOU
THE FIRST SAW MILLS.
flUIE old practice of making boards was to split up tho
Iocs with wedges, and, inconvenient as the practice
was, it was no easy matter to persuade tho world that tho
thing could bo dono in any lstttcr way. Haw mills were
first used in Eurojo in the fifteenth century; but so late
as 1655 an English ambassador, having seen a saw mill
in Franco, thought it a novelty which deserved particular
description. It is amusing to noto how the aversion to
labor-saving niachiuory has always agitated EnglamL
The first saw mill was established by a Dutchman, in
1C63; but the public outcry against the new fangled
machine was so violent that the proprietor was forced to
decamp with greater exjedition than ever did a Dutch
man before. The evil was thus kept out of England for
several years, or rather generations; but iu 170H an un
lucky timler merchant, hoping that after so long a time
the publio would 1 less watchful of its Interests, made a
rash Attomjit to construct another mill The guardians
of tho public welfare, however, were on the alrt, and A
conscientious mob at once collected and pull! the mill
to pieces.