THE BUTTES.



THIS picture represents a class of rocky elevations quite common in the mountainous States and Territories of the great West. Especially are they common in Wyoming, Montana, and Colorado. The name buttes is given to a single peak or abrupt elevation, too high to be called a hill, and not high enough to be called a mountain. Red butte, or black butte, indicates the color of rock of which it is composed.

In Sutler Co., California, are some quite noted buttes. Some of them are so high that they are said to be seen for more than a hundred miles. 

The most prominent one is called South Butte; it is about 1800 feet high, and is covered with massive rocks, brush, and trees. "From this height," says one who has stood there, "the eye takes in the most romantic prospect, the Feather River on the east, and the Sacramento on the south and west; the snow-capped Sierras on the east, and the coast range on the west." Off these buttes is a body of water called a slough, varying from six to twenty feet in depth, and bordered along the banks with trees of different kinds.

Of the red buttes not far from Cheyenne, Wyoming, near which a railroad station by the same name has sprung up, Crofutt, in his "Tourist's Guide," says: "Red Buttes is situated on the plain, six miles from Harney. 

It derived its name from several ridges and peculiar formations of sandstone lying between the railroad and the Black Hills on the right.

"Many of the sandstones rear their peaks from 500 to 1,000 feet above the plain, apparently worn and washed by the elements into wild fantastic shapes and grotesque figures. Rocks which, at a distance, might be taken for castles, rise side by side with the wall of an immense fort; churches rear their roofs, almost shading the lowly cottage by their side; columns, monuments, and pyramids are mixed up with themselves and one another, as though some malignant power had carried off some mighty city of the olden time, and, wearying of his booty, had thrown it down upon these plains without much regard to the order in which the buildings were placed."

It is not strange that tourists visiting this wild and picturesque region are lost in contemplation of the giant works of the Great Architect, and are ready to exclaim, "O Lord, how manifold are thy works; in wisdom hast thou made them all."




 J. E. W.