The Black Hills are chiefly composed of sandstone, and in many places
are broken into savage cliffs and precipices, and present the most
singular and fantastic forms; sometimes resembling towns and castellated
fortresses. The ignorant inhabitants of plains are prone to clothe
the mountains that bound their horizon with fanciful and superstitious
attributes. Thus the wandering tribes of the prairies, who often
behold clouds gathering round the summits of these hills, and lightning
flashing, and thunder pealing from them, when all the neighboring
plains are serene and sunny, consider them the abode of the genii or
thunder-spirits who fabricate storms and tempests. On entering their
defiles, therefore, they often hang offerings on the trees, or place
them on the rocks, to propitiate the invisible "lords of the mountains,"
and procure good weather and successful hunting; and they attach unusual
significance to the echoes which haunt the precipices. This superstition
may also have arisen, in part, from a natural phenomenon of a singular
nature. In the most calm and serene weather, and at all times of the
day or night, successive reports are now and then heard among these
mountains, resembling the discharge of several pieces of artillery.
Similar reports were heard by Messrs.
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