dred to twenty-five hundred Sioux, under
chief Red Leaf.

The soldiers were led into an ambuscade, and having shot away all their
ammunition in a panic, were surrounded and massacred before two o'clock
in the afternoon. Sixteen Indians were killed, and chief Spider among
them. The bodies of the soldiers were horribly mutilated and scalped.
Why reinforcements were not sent out to help them out of their perilous
condition does not appear. Colonel Fetterman was killed, a noble, brave
man, and the fort next above "Laramie" was named after him. This is an
eyesore to Red Cloud, and he requested the President to have it
removed, as of no use, he said, and costing the government a great deal
of money. His wish was not gratified.

MAUVAISES TERRES, OR BAD LANDS, DAKOTA.

Up in the Indian country, in Dakota, near White River, as one travels
over a prairie country, one comes suddenly upon a valley, down between
one and two hundred feet, which is at least thirty miles wide, by
ninety in length. It looks as though it had sunk down below all the
country round; while standing like sentinels all around, one sees
pillars of immense height, of irregular prismatic columns of masses of
stone, stretching up to the height of from one to two hundred feet or
more. It reminds one of the ruins of Pompeii (described by Bulwer) as
the traveler wends his way through deep passages, amidst petrified
snakes, turtles, and mammoth animals, which must have been larger than
elephants. Turtles weighing a thousand pounds, petrified, lie around,
and all over is strewn the remains of extinct animals in this vast
charnel-house.

Professor Leidy, of Philadelphia, has detected about thirty remains of
species of extinct mammalia. Many of these belonged to animals such as
the hippopotamus, rhinoceros, tapir, etc. One extinct animal, called
the Oreodon, had grinding teeth like lions, cats, etc., and must have
belonged to a race that lived on vegetables and flesh, and yet chewed
the cud like a cow. Another called the Machairodus, was wholly
carnivorous, and combined the size and weight of the grizzly bear with
the jaws and teeth of the Bengal tiger. Most of the bones are yet in
good preservation and highly mineralized. Dr. Owen says he saw all the
bones of a skeleton eighteen feet long and nine in height; also a jaw
of a similar animal, which measured five feet along the range of its
teeth. At one place there is a valley which has the appearance of a
fl