Continuing our way southward to the junction of the Wyoming Division, in Fall River county, we turned north on that small branch whose temporary terminus is Merino, at which point a team was engaged to take us to what is truly one of the seven wonders of the world. In our trip of several thousand miles through the mountainous regions of the great West, we had seen and photographed many extraordinary and startling prodigies of nature, so that all sentiment of awe, surprise and admiration had been aroused, but we were now to be confronted by a miracle in stone that confounded and mingled all feelings of wonderment and fascination into stupefaction of bewildered senses. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: DEVIL’S THUMB, CUSTER PARK, NEAR CUSTER CITY.—This grotesque formation is weird enough to be in fact the thumb, or the toe, or any other member of his Satanic majesty’s supposably ugly and immeasurably immense body. Suggestive of evil power as it may be, the Thumb is surrounded by other petrified imps of darkness, scarcely less uncanny and frightful in appearance, indicative of nature in her wildest mood. ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: THE DEVIL’S CHAIR, ST. CROIX RIVER.] We had to travel about twenty-five miles across a fairly level stretch of country before reaching the Belle Fourche River, a main branch of the Cheyenne, on the west bank of which is located this marvelous monument of the ages, which for its astounding size and unaccountable formation is called the Devil’s Tower. Among the Sioux Indians, who have always regarded it with superstitious dread, it is known as the Mateo’s Tepee, signifying the Bear’s Lodge, and was by them supposed to be the haunt of a were-animal, who possessed the power of becoming a bear or man at pleasure. The country within a radius of fifty miles is slightly broken by high table-lands, but there is nothing to indicate any special spasm of nature by which so great a freak might have been formed; yet out of this undulating expanse of landscape suddenly rises a stupendous obelisk of vitrified stone, to the amazing height of eight hundred feet. The base, which measures 326 feet at its longest diameter, is 400 feet above the river-bed, which in turn is 500 feet above sea level. Thus measured, the peak of this amazing tower is 1,700 feet above the sea; no surprise therefore that it is visible for a distance of forty miles. But the wonder which such a colossal shaft naturally excites is immensely increased by the fact that the Devil’s Tower is a composition of huge crystals of basalt, or volcanic rock, which lie in columns some three feet in diameter, and continue unbroken from the base to the peak, giving to it a fibrous appearance. The walls are almost vertical, with a slightly vertical slope, to give it a more graceful contour, and though