After leaving camp, we continued to ascend the gentle slope upon which it had been pitched, for nearly a mile, and on reaching the crest, the most superbly grand and beautiful sight burst upon our view, that my eye ever rested upon. Down for a thousand feet and more, the road abruptly wound into the valley below; while far away, on all sides, spread this magnificent panorama of mountain precipice and vale—solitary, grand, chaotic, as it came from the hands of Him “who doeth all things well.” What a scene for the painter, what a wonderous field for the Naturalist![39]
Todd also described “the remains of turtle, petrified, of all sizes, shattered and perfect, some not larger than the crown of a hat, others of huge proportions....”[40]
Beginning in 1870 other organizations began making important collections. Among these were the United States Geological Survey, Yale University, Princeton University, American Museum of Natural History, University of Nebraska, Carnegie Museum, University of South Dakota, and the South Dakota State School of Mines and Technology.[41]
In 1874 the Badlands were visited by the distinguished paleontologist Dr. O.C. Marsh of Yale University and his party. At that time the Indians in the region were in a very ugly temper as a result of the discovery of gold in the Black Hills by the Custer Expedition. Guaranteed much of present northwestern Nebraska and all of South Dakota west of the Missouri by the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, they regarded white visitors to the western Dakota region as intruders. Accompanied by an army escort, Dr. Marsh and his party slipped into the reservation through the Red Cloud Agency (located along the banks of the White River near the present town of Crawford, Nebraska) at night without arousing the Indian sentinels and reached the fossil region. Hurriedly gathering and packing its specimens, the party returned to the agency less than 24 hours before a war party scoured the region for “the Big Bone Chief.” At the agency, Chief Red Cloud informed Dr. Marsh of the manner in which the Indian Bureau was fleecing the Indians in their rations. Dr. Marsh carried this information to Washington, which resulted in a Congressional investigation of the agency.[42]
Figure 5 MUSEUM OF GEOLOGY, SOUTH DAKOTA SCHOOL OF MINES AND TECHNOLOGY
The finest exhibits of Badlands fossils are on display in this museum. It is open to the public without charge throughout the year.
Mr. John Bell Hatcher did much of the collecting for Dr. Marsh, under the auspices of the United States Geological Survey, and is considered to be one of the most successful and original of all collectors who have worked in the Badlands.[43] He is responsible for beginning the practice of collecting and preserving complete skeletons of fossilized animals.[44]
While considerable collecting of fossils in the Badlands has been done by various organizations since 1870, it was conducted in a somewhat random manner at first. Since 1899 the South Dakota State School of Mines and Technology has sent students into the Badlands for brief field studies.[45] However, it was not until 1924 that a systematic means of collecting fossils in the Badlands was begun by a Princeton University professor, Glenn L. Jepsen, who was studying at the South Dakota State School of Mines and Technology. He organized the first School of Mines Badlands Expedition, which met with immediate success and laid the foundation for the present extensive paleontological collections of that school (See [Figure 5]).[46]
For many years large herds of bison roamed the Badlands during the summer months. About 1861, the year that the Dakota Territory was established, a drought began and continued for three years. The buffalo which used the region as their summer range left during that period. After the passing of the drought years, the herds, which had been driven far to the west by hunters, returned only in small bands. For a time great herds of mountain sheep, elk, antelope, whitetail and mule deer continued to roam the area in large numbers. The elk wintered in the southern Black Hills and went down into the Badlands in early spring. In 1877 residents of the Rapid City area and market hunters from the gold camps in the northern Black Hills killed large numbers, which ended the elk migration to the Badlands. Antelope as well as whitetail and mule deer were killed by market hunters and settlers. The mountain sheep was the last of the big game animals to disappear.[47]