This is an 1879 Henry Newton view and map of the Black Hills during the height of the Black Hills Gold Rush. The Black Hills are a spectacular mountain range in the northern plains states of South Dakota and Wyoming. The view was designed by Newton to illustrate the bizarre geography of the Black Hills. The novel convention of birds are used to identify various types of stone, for example, a single bird flying downward is Archean Schists, while two cucks are Carboniferous Limestone, etc..

Gold was discovered in the Black Hills in 1874 by the Black Hills Expedition, which was led by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, who would later meet his end at the Battle of Little Big Horn. An expedition, led by Henry Newton and Walter P. Jenney, was sent to investigate the uncharted regions of the Black Hills by the United States Geological Survey in response to this discovery and the ensuing gold rush. Created during the height of the Black Hills Gold Rush, this map was published in an atlas which accompanied a government report titled Topographic and geological atlas of the Black Hills of Dakota to accompany the report of Henry Newton, E.M. assistant geologist.The expedition, led by Walter P. Jenney, E.M., Per Wheat, who quoted J.S. Newberry

When presented to Congress its publication would have been immediately authorized except for a selfish and heartless opposition it encountered springing from the fear that it would betray the inaccuracy of previously published descriptions of the geology of the region. [A scarcely veiled crack at F. V. Hayden.] This opposition cost Mr. Newton his life, for when Congress deferred action on his report till another session he determined to employ a part of the interval in revisiting the Black Hills, repeating some of his observations and recording the results of the rapidly-developing mining industry. While engaged in this work he was attacked by typhoid fever, and died at Deadwood, August 5, 1877.

This map was drawn by Walter Proctor Jenney under the supervision of Henry Newton. The view was published by Julius Bien in New York, 1879.