buttes and
hills that rise 400 to 600 or more feet above the surrounding plains.
These monadnocks are "... part of a system of Tertiary erosional
remnants standing above the Late Cretaceous rocks of northwestern South
Dakota...," according to Lillegraven (1970:832), who went on to point
out: "The butte tops are flat and grass-covered. The western sides are
being actively cut away by slumping, and the topography below the
western cliff walls is hummocky with sparse vegetation. The eastern
flanks of the tables are, by contrast, less cliff-forming and less
slumped and are generally well forested with coniferous and deciduous
trees." Slim Buttes, the North and South Cave Hills, the East and West
Short Pine Hills, and the Long Pine Hills, which barely enter the county
north of Camp Crook, comprise the pine-clad buttes; other prominences,
such as Table Mountain and Sheep Buttes, are all but nude of coniferous
cover. The highest point in the county, "Harding Peak," is 4019 feet
above sea level.

Sediments underlying northwestern South Dakota include rocks assignable
to the Pierre (shale), Fox Hills (sand), and Hell Creek formations of
Cretaceous age and the Ludlow and Tongue River formations of the
Paleocene. These rocks may be exposed at the surface, but usually are
overlain by relatively thin soils that are mostly derived from them; the
best soil in the county for agricultural purposes is the loessal sandy
or silty loam in the northeastern quarter, which is derived from Tongue
River sediments (Baker, 1952).

[Illustration: FIG. 1. Map of Harding County, South Dakota, showing
location of places named in text.]

The climate of northwestern South Dakota is characteristic of the
northern part of the interior grasslands of North America--that is, the
winters are cold and the summers hot and dry. Weather data for the
period 1896-1967 at Camp Crook are representative of those gathered at
the several stations maintained in the county. At Camp Crook the mean
temperature for January is 17.3 F, whereas that for July is 71.2 F;
precipitation averages 13.17 inches annually, most falling in the months
of April through September; snowfall amounts to an average of 33.2
inches per year and is recorded from every month from September through
May (Climatogeography of the United States, no. 20-39, Camp Crook, South
Dakota, 1969).

Major surface drainage systems in Harding County include the Little
Missouri River, which flows northward thro