mens from Marshall's mine on South Boulder creek were submitted to Dr. Torrey by the Union Pacific Railroad Company for examination, with the following result: Water in a state of combination, or its elements.... Volatile matter expelled at a red heat, forming inflammable gases and vapors.. Ash of a reddish color, sometimes gray A specimen from Coal creek, three miles south, yielded similar results: 12.00 26.03 59.20 2.80 100.00 20.00 gases and vapors.. 19.30 Ash, consisting chiefly of oxyd of iron, alumina, and a little silica 58.70 2.00 100.00 The percentage of carbon is shown to be in one case 59. 20, and in the other 58. 70, which shows at a glance the superiority of the western lignites over those found in any other portion of the world. Anthracite is regarded as so much superior a fuel on account of the large per cent. of carbon, and also the small amount of hydrogen and oxygen. The bituminous coals contain a large percentage of hydrogen and oxygen, but not enough water and ash to prevent them from being made useful, but the calorific power of lignite is very much diminished by the quantity of water contained in it, from the fact that so valuable a portion of the fuel must be used in converting that water into steam. The day of my visit to the Marshall coal mines, on South Boulder creek, 73 tons of lignite were taken out and sold at the rate of $4 a ton at the mine, and from $12 to $16 at Denver. This lignite is somewhat brittle, but has nearly the hardness of ordinary anthracite, which it very much resembles at a distance. In some portions there is a considerable quantity of amber. I spent two evenings at Mr. Marshall's house burning this fuel in a furnace, and it seemed to me that it would prove to be superior to ordinary western bituminous coals and rank next to anthracite for domestic purposes. Being non-bituminous, it will require a draught to burn well. It is as neat as anthracite, leaving no stain on the fingers. It produces no offensive gas or odor, and is thus superior in a sanitary point of view, and when brought into general use it will be a great favorite for culinary purposes. It contains no destructive elements, leaves very little ash, no clinkers, and produces no more erosive effects on stoves, grates, or steam boilers than dry wood. If exposed in the open air it is apt to crumble, but if protected it receives no special injury. Dr. Torrey thinks there is no reason why it should not be eminently useful for generating steam and for smelting ores. Throughout the intercalated beds of clay at Boulder creek and vicinity are found masses of a kind of concretionary iron ore, varying in size from one ounce to several tons in weight. This iron ore is probably a limonite, commonly known under the name of brown hematite or brown iron ore. It may perhaps be found in the state of carbonate of iron when sought for beyond the reach of the atmosphere. These nodules or concretionary masses, when broken, show regular concentric rings, varying in color from yellow to brown, looking sometimes like rusty yellow agates. It is said to yield 70 per cent. of metallic iron. The first smelting furnace ever created in Colorado was established here by Mr. Marshall, and he informed me that for the production of one ton of pig iron three tons of the ore, 200 pounds of limestone, and 130 to 150 bushels of charcoal are required. Over 500 tons of this ore have been taken from this locality, and the area over which it seems to abound cannot be less than 50 square miles. Indications of large deposits of iron ore have been found in many other localities along the line of the Pacific railroads, and if the mineral fuel which is found here in such great abundance can be made useful for smelting purposes, these lignites and iron ore beds will exert the same kind of influence over the progress of the great west that Pennsylvania exerts over all the contiguous States. When we reflect that we have from 10,000 to 20,000 square miles of mineral fuel in the centre of a region where for a radius of 600 to 1,000 miles in every direction there is little or no fuel either on or beneath the surface, the future value of these deposits cannot be overestimated. The geological age of these western lignite deposits is undoubtedly tertiary. Those on the upper Missouri have been shown to be of that age, both from vegetable and animal remains, and in the Laramie plains I collected two species of plants, a populus and a plantanus, specifically identical with those found on the upper Missouri. The simple fact that cretaceous formations Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 are well shown all along the foot of the mountains, and that No. 5 presents its usual lithological character, with its peculiar fossils, within 15 miles of Marshall's mines; also that at the mine 2, 3, and 4 are seen inclining at nearly the same angle and holding a lower position than the lignite beds, is sufficient evidence that the strata enclosing the lignite beds are newer than cretaceous. A few obscure dicotyledonous leaves were found, which belong rather to tertiary forms than cretaceous. The connection of the lignite deposits on the upper Missouri has been traced uninterruptedly to the North Platte, about 80 miles above Fort Laramie. They then pass beneath the White river tertiary heds, but reappear again about 20 miles south of Pole creek, and con tinue far southward into New Mexico. Near Red Buttes, on the North Platte, it seems also probable that the same basin continues northward along the slope of the Rocky mountains, nearly or quite to the Arctic sea. Whether or not there are any indications of this formation over the eastern range into the British possessions I have no means of ascertaining, but the Wind River chain, which forms the main divide of the Rocky Mountain range, exhibits a great thickness of the lignite tertiary beds on both eastern and western slopes, showing conclusively by the fracture and inclination of the strata that prior to the elevation of this range they extended uninterruptedly in a horizontal position across the area now occupied by the Wind River chain. Passing the first range of mountains in the Laramie plains we find that the Big Laramie river cuts through cretaceous beds Nos. 2 and 3; continuing our course westward to Little Laramie, a branch of the Big Laramie, and No. 3 becomes 50 to 150 feet in thickness, filled with fossils, Ostrea congesta, and a species of Inoceramus. At Rock creek, about 40 miles west of Big Laramie river, the lignite beds overlap the cretaceous, but in such a way as to show that the more inclined portions have been swept away by erosion, and that the red beds and carboniferous limestones once existed without break and in a horizontal position across the Laramie range prior to its elevation. I cannot discuss this matter in detail in this article, but the evidence is clear to me now that all the lignite tertiary beds of the west are but fragments of one great basin, interrupted here and there by the upheaval of mountain chains or concealed by the deposition of newer formations. All the evidence that I can secure seems to indicate that there are no valuable beds of lignite west of the Mississippi in formations older than the tertiary. SECTION III. MINERAL RESOURCES OF THE TERRITORY OF MONTANA. [By W. S. Keyes, M. E.] The Territory of Montana is, saving the recently acquired Alaska, the newest and most remote of the subdivisions of the domain of the United States. Its form is very nearly exactly a right-angled parallelogram, the irregularity of the figure occurring on the southwestern border, where the territorial limits are coincident with the main chain of the Cour d'Alene and Bitter Root mountains. Its northern boundary is latitude 49°, being the dividing line between the British and American possessions. Its longitudinal extension, with Dakota on the east and Idaho on the west, embraces 12 degrees, viz: from 27° to 39° west of the meridian of Washington, while its southern boundary is marked, excepting a small portion on the extreme southwest, by the 45th parallel of north latitude. HISTORICAL.-Our first authentic description of that portion of the continent, of which Montana now forms a part, is due to the labors of Captains Lewis and Clarke, two officers of the regular United States army. They were despatched, at the beginning of the present century, under the auspices of the general government, to explore the far northwest, which was then, and has remained until quite recently, almost a terra incognita. With infinite patience they surmounted all the natural obstacles in their pathway; climbed the snowy ranges; sought out the passes in the mountains; descended in canoes all the principal streams, and pursued to their sources by far the greater number of their tributaries; passed some years among the Indians; gave names to all the rivers, by far the larger proportion of which are still retained; described the fauna and flora-in a word, all the animal and vegetable life, so exhaustively that their descriptions, perfectly accurate more than 60 years ago, are in every essential particular as truthful to-day. Again, we have the results of the labors of Captain Bonneville, who explored these regions some 30 years subsequently to Lewis and Clarke. The graphic pen of the late Washington Irving compiled from these observations a most admirable and interesting volume. More recently we have the report of Governor Isaac I. Stevens, who, in the years 1853, 1854, and 1855, made a careful survey of the passes of the Rocky mountains, with a view to determine the practicability of a northern route for a railroad to the Pacific. Lieutenant Mullan, one of the members of the party, established a wagon route from Fort Benton, on the Missouri river, to Walla-Walla, on the Columbia river, in Washington Territory. The distance between these points does not exceed 650 miles, and with this, comparatively speaking, trifling land portage we unite by navigable streams the waters of the Pacific ocean and those of the Gulf of Mexico. Up to May 26, 1864, on which date the organic act creating the Territory was approved by Congress, Montana was embraced within the jurisdiction of Idaho, whose laws still remained in force until the assembling of the first territorial legislature at Bannock, December 12, of the same year. During the interregnum no advantage was taken or sought to be taken of the technical irregularity of administering in Montana the laws of Idaho-a fact which bears eloquent testimony to the integrity and high character of the first settlers. Subsequently, when the fame of its rich placers had been noised abroad, the Territory became flooded with an immigration of ruffians, notorious desperadoes, and cutthroats, the refuse of the Pacific States and Territories. Encouraged by impunity, their leaders sought and obtained such positions in the lower executive ranks of the government that justice against any member or members of the band having its ramifications throughout the entire mining regions was practically impossible. The people enduring "until longer endurance ceased to be a virtue," were impelled to the formation of a "vigilance committee." This organization, which still exists, finally triumphed over the lawless desperadoes who infested the country; hung some and banished others, until life and property in Montana were as safe if not safer than in the more settled portions of the United States. The civil law and its expositors are now able, unaided, to fulfil to the utmost the behests of justice and to stifle at once, if not entirely prevent, any recurrence of such outrages as led to the formation of a committee of vigilance. The name of the Territory is derived directly from the Spanish, in which language the word "montaña" signifies "mountain," while the aboriginal designation in the Snake dialect, viz: Toi-abe shock-up," "land of the mountain," likewise bears testimony to the broken character of its surface. AREA. According to J. L. Corbett, chief engineer, the area of the Territory is 146,689.35 square miles, equal to 93,881,184 acres. Compared with the older and settled portions of the United States, Montana is nearly as large as the State of California, somewhat more than half the size of Texas, nearly three times that of New York, two and one-half times that of the six New England States combined, four times that of Kentucky, and 110 times that of Rhode Island. The proportion susceptible of cultivation in the several counties is, according to the same authority, as follows: Being a grand total of 3,346,400 acres, which gives a proportion of little more than I in 30. In the absence of the official returns of the surveyor general, these figures must be taken only as reasonable approximations. DISCOVERY OF GOLD.-None of the earlier exploring parties seem to have observed or even predicted the probability of finding the precious metals in any of the far northwestern Territories. Professor Dana, it is true, mentions in 1842 the occurrence of certain goldbearing talcose and micaceous shists on the Umpqua river, in southern Oregon, and likewise stated that similar rocks had been found on the banks of the Sacramento river, in California. Saving the Indians, the inhabitants of these regions consisted of a few trappers and a small number of Catholic missionaries. The latter, from their intelligence and cultivation, were the only persons likely to have noticed the geological significance of the rocks, drift, and alluvium; but even had they been well aware of the existence of gold and silver-and this, on the authority of Father De Smet, was indeed the case—it is highly improbable that they would have laid much stress on the advantages to accrue from their development. These self-denying pioneers of civilization have ever shown themselves to be the only body of men who, within the domain of the United States, have been able to tame the savages and introduce among them the arts of peace. Strictly upright in their commerce with the aborigines, they have succeeded in obtaining their confidence, and while the houses of the settlers are set in flames, and themselves and their families fall a prey to the tomahawk, these missionary establishments always remain intact. To Mr. Granville Stuart, an old resident and careful observer, we are indebted for the following facts in regard to the early history of gold-seeking in what now constitutes Montana: It seems that one Francois Finlay, commonly known as "Benetsce," a half-breed, from the Red River of the North, in British territory, had for some time worked in the placers of California. Becoming dissatis fied with that country, he found his way back again to the vicinity of his former home. He arrived in Montana, and was the first person to discover on Gold creek a few particles of fine float gold. This creek is situated in Deer Lodge county, on the western slope of the Rocky mountains, and is one of the minor tributaries of the Hell Gate river, whose waters flow ultimately into the Pacific ocean. Probably from a lack of provisions he did little more than superficially prospect the locality. He performed, however, enough work to entitle him to the honor of discovery. Subsequently, in May, 1858, James and Granville Stuart, Thomas Adams, and Reese Anderson prospected on Gold creek, finding as high as ten cents to the pan, equalling about one-half cent to the pound of earth. This party, few in numbers and continually annoyed by the Blackfeet Indians, who persistently stole their horses, and being, moreover, unsupplied with the necessary tools and provisions, likewise abandoned, for the moment, any further search. Two years later, namely, during the summer of 1860, one Henry Thomas, called "Gold Tom," or "Tom Gold Digger," set up on Gold creek three small sluice-boxes which he had himself roughly hewed out of green timber. With these rude implements he succeeded, unaided and alone, in collecting from $1.50 to $2 per day. His was the first actual mining in that part of Washington Territory now Montann. Becom ing dissatisfied with the reward of his labors, he kept industriously prospecting all over the Territory, and, strangely enough, his favorite camping ground was near the location of the present city of Helena, in whose immediate vicinity were found, subsequently, some of the richest placer deposits ever worked. It remained, however, for others than "Gold Tom" to unearth the precious dust whose resting place had been so often pressed by his footstep. Stuart and his party had removed to the vicinity of Fort Bridger, on the emigrant road, where they lived as traders, until, in 1860, they concluded to return and thoroughly inves tigate the affluents to the valley of the Deer Lodge. They prospected during 1861, and found several favorable localities. It was not, however, until 1862, and after they had received from Walla Walla, 425 miles distant, both tools and lumber, that the first string of ten real sluices was set up and worked. In the mean time they had communicated the news of their discovery to a relative at Pike's Peak, as Colorado was then called. Hence resulted a considerable exodus of miners, who began to arrive in Deer Lodge about June 20, 1862. The new comers discovered the placers at Pike's Peak gulch. Pioneer gulch, &c. From this time forward the immigration of gold seekers rapidly increased in volume. Many, becoming bewildered among the pathless hills while searching for the Deer Lodge, discovered other and valuable placers. At present there remains scarcely a mountain gorge or sequestered ravine but has been prospected more or less thoroughly from mouth to source. For several months anterior to the segregation of the Territory from Idaho the people gov erned themselves. Far away from any settled habitations, a little handful of hardy mining adventurers, they still found time, amid the excitements of gold-mining, to take such steps as have finally secured the fullest liberty combined with an entire subservience to law. They discovered the placers at Bannock, began the development of Alder gulch, and laid the foundation of Virginia City, now the capital of Montana, months before the arrival of any territorial officials. POPULATION.--The present population of the Territory may be estimated to be about 24,000 souls. This total has been arrived at from the reports of the different assistant assessors of internal revenue, who have received instructions to make an informal approximate census. Mr. N. P. Langford, the efficient United States collector and one of the pioneers of Montana, is of the opinion that the number of inhabitants has remained very nearly constant from the fall of 1864 up to and including the present year, and has probably, during that interval, never fallen below 21,000. We may, by s ill another method, obtain a reasonable approximation, corroborative of the foregoing, viz., by an examination of the vote cast in September of the present year. Local causes combined with political excitement, caused the casting of an unexpectedly large and probably full vote. The eight counties into which the Territory was originally divided, not including Big Horn, polled a total of very nearly 12,000 votes. In this number are included the votes of the soldiers performing volunteer service against the Indians, all the colored votes, and also those which were rejected from the count by reason of informality. Hence, multiplying the full vote by two, we have a total population of 24,000, corresponding with that reported by the assistant assessors. In support of this multiple, which may by some be deemed unreasonably small, it may be alleged that the Territory is barely four years old, that the first settlers were of that migratory class who have neither home nor family, and that women and children are but just beginning to form an appreciable percentage of the population. On the approach of winter, many whose summer exertions have returned a profit, and who, likewise, are unwilling to endure the comparative stagnation of the cold season, emigrate either to the east or west. Returning spring, however, brings back as many if not more than departed, eager to begin or to renew the toilsome yet fascinating pursuit of the gold hunter. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.-The most prominent feature of the physical geography of the Territory, particularly in the western or ore-bearing regions, is the gentleness of the acclivities and the absence of sharply projecting volcanic peaks. To the traveller passing over the summit of the Rocky mountains, on the road hither from Utah, this fact is vividly impressed upon his attention, as forming a most striking contrast to the enormous outflow of basaltic lava extending from Port Neuf cañon, in Idaho, more than 200 miles, quite to the crests of the main chain. We observe, also, even on the highest of the hills, great strata of washed and rounded boulders, loosely bound together by a granitic detritus. We find, further, quite high up on the mountains, lakes of greater or less extent, whose formation was evidently owing to the blocking up of some primeval gorge by means of glacier-borne boulders. Indeed, in one of the valleys tributary to the Deer Lodge the former location of such a lake is plainly visible. Here, for centuries perhaps, the pent-up waters, swollen by the annual melting of the winter's snows, had, year by year, further insinuated themselves into the opposing dike, until, with a mightier effort, they swept downwards to the plain, and piled up in long ridges the rocks and earthy matters in their pathway. As might be anticipated, these hyperborean regions were once the scene of long-continued and wide-spread glacial action, the evidences of which are perfectly palpable. A locality of particular interest in this regard is the cañon of Rattlesnake creek, which takes its rise in the Bald mountain, northwest of the town of Argenta, in Beaver Head county. Here there are exposed upon the surface great slabs of quartzite, polished to the smoothness of glass, with fine parallel striations marking the course of the glaciers. At a point about half a mile below the town a large mass of this rock appears, which is remarkable for its brilliant, deep mahogany color and perfect polish. The lower ranges and foot-hills of the Rocky mountains are made up almost entirely of rounded, rolling hills, having a substratum of drift and covered with a rich alluvium. They afford conclusive evidence of the vast and continuous wearing effect, not only of the primeval glaciers, but also of the melting snows and rains which for centuries on centuries have swept downwards from the main range. Sone very fine examples of morains are to be seen in the vicinity of Diamond City, on the eastern side of the Missouri. Great boulders of granite, worn and rounded by the attrition of the ice field, are piled up at a considerable distance from their original resting place. Another phenomenon referable to masses of ice is to be observed in most of the larger rivers: the shallower streams, during the intense cold of the winter, become frozen to the very bottom, and envelope in a coating of ice many small and occasionally very large fragments of rock; the great increments, caused by the melting of the snows on the mountains, carry down numerous blocks of ice and the adhering stones. These latter are ultimately deposited in the river's bed, forming rapids, shoals, &c., or adding to those already formed. and still further complicating a navigation sufficiently difficult from shiftings of the line of the channel and from snags and sawyers. The low lands furnish admirable sites for farming purposes, while the high plateaus are covered with a luxuriant growth of grasses, affording an almost limitless expanse of pasturage. Until within a very recent period, and before the hand of civilization had begun to seize the country for its own, vast herds of elk and buffalo found a lavish sustenance on the countless hills and valleys, untrod by other than Indians and a few of the hardy race of trappers. For the purpose of description it is preferable to treat separately of the eastern and western portions of the Territory. The former, bordering on Dacota, is drained by the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers and their numerous tributaries, and is, excepting the bottom lands through which the streams flow, comparatively unknown. From such information, however, as is available, we are justified in adopting the conclusion that it is composed of rolling terrace and elevated table lands. The west, on the contrary, is mountainous. The hill country, made up of the primitive and secondary rocks, is the habitus of the orebearing veins; whereas the low lands, comprising, geologically speaking, more recent sedimentary and drift formations, are prolific of useful rather than precious minerals. Below Fort Benton, the head of navigation, on the Missouri river, and likewise on the Yellowstone, after it leaves the mountains we find these water deposits, consisting of clays and sandstones, after towering far above the river banks. Both valley systems and their subsidiary gorges are due to the eroding action of the streams draining through countless ages from off the eastern flanks of the Rocky mountains. In the eddies and lake-like depressions of these vast sedimentary plains the primeval forests, washed from their mountain fastnesses, have piled trunk on trunk to the formation of very extensive coal beds, again to be covered up by subsequent deposits of clays and sandstones. In many places along the river banks of both these streams great beds of coal and layers of sand stone, in color a dirty gray or yellow, are now plainly visible, still occupying the same hori zontal positions in which they were originally deposited. The mountains of the Territory are, as before stated, predominant in the west. They comprise the Rocky mountain chain and its subordinate ranges, the Coeur d'Alene and Bitter Root mountains, &c., &c., forming a portion of the backbone of the continent, and covering a tract of country from 300 to 400 miles wide. Within these limits are many spurs surpassing in altitude the peaks of the main range. They give rise to numberless valleys, generally connected together by low passes. Below Fort Benton, and in the upper central portion of the Territory, between the Missouri and Milk rivers, we find two considerable upheavals, viz: the Bear's Paw, running nearly north and south, and the Little Rocky mountains, having an east and west trend. Again, nearly in the geographical centre, we find the Belt and Judith mountains, and in the south centre the Big Horn mountains, which pass out of the Territory southwardly into Dakota. Montana is a country pre-eminently well watered. It embraces within its confines for a distance of 300 miles the entire eastern and part of the western water-shed of the Rocky mountains. Draining the former, we have the great rivers Missouri and Yellowstone. Tributary to and forming the first named, we find the Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin, whose waters, drawn from the far western snowy peaks, unite almost simultaneously in the neighborhood of Gallatin City. Thence flowing unitedly in a northeast course they debouch into the foot-hills through a precipitous gorge, denominated by Lewis and Clarke "the gate of the mountains." Below Fort Benton the Marias, Judith, Muscleshell, and Milk rivers, draining the northern and central regions, unite with the Missouri. The Yellowstone, which with its affluents, Clark's Fork, Pryor's Fork, Big Horn, Tongue, and Powder rivers, drains the southern and southeastern portions, flows east and northeast, until, near the territorial limits, in the vicinity of Fort Union, it unites to swell the volume of waters borne by the Missouri to the Gulf of Mexico. West of the main ridge the Hell Gate, Missoula, and Big Blackfoot rivers, flowing nearly north-northwest, unite to form the Bitter Root, which, joining with the Flat Head further |