"South of the Laramie plains is the North Park, one of three great parks of the Rocky Mountains, so fully described by Richardson, Bross, and Bowles. This North Park is formed by the great Snowy Range. It is a valley from six to eight thousand feet high, ninety miles long, and forty miles wide, surrounded by snowy mountains from thirteen to fifteen thousand feet high. These mountain tops and sides are completely covered with dense growths of forests; the lower hill-sides and this great valley are covered with grasses. The forests and mountains afford ample shelter from sweeping winds. Here, as well as on the Laramie plains, the buffalo grazed in great herds; and here the Ute hunters, from some hidden canyons, dashed down among them on their trained and fleet ponies, shooting their arrows with unerring aim on all sides, and having such glorious sport as kings might court and envy. The Indians are now gone from this valley, and the buffalo nearly so. On the two million acres in this valley not twenty head of cattle graze. "This great park, splendidly watered by the three forks of the Platte, and by a hundred small streams that drain these lofty mountains of their snows and rains--rich in all kinds of nutritious grasses, plentifully supplied with timber; on the tertiary coal fields, with iron, copper, lead, and gold--has not one real settler. There are a few miners, but where there should be flocks and herds of sheep and cattle without number, there is only the wild game--the elk, antelope, and deer." THE VALLEYS OF THE WHITE EARTH AND NIOBRARA. These streams are branches of the Missouri--the one mainly in Dakota Territory, and the other in Nebraska. The following graphic paragraphs concerning them are from Hayden again: "I have spent many days exploring this region (the White Earth Valley) when the thermometer was 112° in the shade, and there was no water suitable for drinking purposes within fifteen miles. But it is only to the geologist that this place can have any permanent attraction. He can wind his way through the wonderful canyons among some of the grandest ruins in the world. Indeed, it resembles a gigantic city fallen to decay. Domes, towers, minarets and spires may be seen on every side, which assume a great variety of shapes when viewed in the distance. Not unfrequently the rising or the setting sun will light up these grand old ruins with a wild, strange beauty, reminding one of a city illuminated in the night, when seen from some high point. The harder layers project from the sides of the valley or canyon with such regularity that they appear like seats, one above the other, of some vast amphitheater.