north, forms the Lewis Fork of the Columbia river, whose waters find their way to the Pacific

ocean.

There is but one considerable body of fresh water within the territorial limits, viz: the Flat Head lake, situated in the northwestern corner, on the western slope of the mountains, and forming the chief source of the Flat Head river above mentioned. Lying like great troughs between the moutain ridges, and drained by the principal rivers and their countless minor tributaries, we find five grand basins, and numberless subsidiary valleys; four to the east, and one west of the Rocky mountains.

The query may seem pertinent as to the motive for including in Montana rather than in Idaho the strip of territory west of the main chain. In answer it may be stated that the passes from east to west over or through the main ridge are more numerous, and in general passes fower and less liable to be blocked up by snow than those of the Bitter Root and Coeur d'Alene ranges. Hence for all practical purposes this magnificent valley system belongs to Montana on the east.

This western basin, with a general course of north 40° west, conformably to the trend of the main rauge, is made up of eight well-defined valleys. These are separated from one another by projecting spurs, over whose foot-hills there is an easy communication at all seasons of the year. Through each and all of them there flow streams prolific of trout. Near the sources of these brooks and rivers, and in general over the entire western slope, we find a luxuriant growth of pine, fir, spruce, and cedar, affording a marked contrast to the compara. tively sparcely timbered east.

The theory which seems most plausible to account for this difference, which is palpable to the most unobservant when passing over the summit towards the west is, that the winds from the far southwest, warmed by a more genial sun, and absorbing the moisture evaporated over the immense expanse of the Pacific ocean, pour down, to nourish the trees and grasses, copious showers of rain, which are set free by a contact, with the colder strata about the summits of the mountains. The same winds depositing there the greater proportion of their moisture in the form of snow, have naturally a smaller amount of rain for the foot-hills and plains of the eastern slopes. The melting, however, of the heavy snow-fall carries down a rich granitic detritus, and supplies an enormous yet varying increment to the numerous tributaries to the Missouri.

Eastward of the main ridge, and stretching along the northern confines through 10°, quite to the territorial limits, and unbroken by any considerable superficial inequalities, except the Bear's Paw and Little Rocky mountains, we find the long valley drained by the Marias and Milk rivers. The upper edge of this basin is embraced within the British possessions. The major portion consists of high plateaus, rolling prairie and barren clay table lands, denominated by the trappers and French " voyageurs" "Les Manvaises Terres," or Bad Lands. These formations, barren and desolate, consist of terrace piled on terrace, marking the limits of the great sedimentary waves which have poured downwards from the mountains. Where such occur we find little or no timber, excepting along the river bottoms, which are scantily supplied with a meagre growth of cottonwood trees. The rivers have worn their pathway through these deposits, and the traveller first becomes aware of their existence when, standing upon the edge of some precipitous chasm, he observes the running waters hundreds of feet below him. Only along the immediate foot-hills are to be found sufficient timber and alluvium to invite settlement and cultivation.

Nearly in the centre of the Territory, and almost encircled by the Bear's Paw and Little Rocky mountains on the north and the Belt and Judith mountains on the south, we find s considerable basin drained by the Missouri and its tributaries, the Arrow, Judith, and Muscleshell rivers, all of which flow from south to north. A large proportion of this region may properly be embraced in the designation "bad lands." They find their most prominent exemplification from the mouth of the Judith river nearly as far as Fort Benton. Interspersed among these barren clay terraces we find most curious sandstone formations eroded, by the action of the elements, into strange and fantastic resemblances to time-worn battlements and hoary ruins. This basin is fairly watered, and although it contains a large proportion of worthless land, is not so uniformly uninviting as the preceding section.

To the east and southeast, and forming very nearly one-fourth of the Territory, we have the very extensive Big Horn valley, drained by the Yellowstone and its numerous tributaries, Less is positively known of this region than of any other portion of Montana. Hunters and trappers report the existence of wonderful falls and rapids on the upper portions of the main stream, and beautiful lakes near its source. We have, further, the descriptions of Lewis and Clark, who for 15 days, some 60 years ago, floated down its current, and also of a few ven turesome voyagers of more recent periods. None, however, treat specially of other than the terrain bordering the river. The prevailing formation is evidently sedimentary drift, throngh which the rivers have cut their pathway. It is a country as yet sacred to the buffalo, and is pre-eminently difficult to explore owing to the determined hostility of the savages.

There is remaining the fan-like valley system above the "Gate of the Mountains," drained by the Upper Missouri and its three forks, the Jefferson, Gallatin, and Madison. This region, comprising a section of country less than 150 miles square, in area about twice the size of the State of Maryland, is emphatically Montana. Quite in the heart of the mountains, well watered and interspersed with fertile valleys and rolling grass-covered hills, it contains the

chief centres of population, the most prolific placers, and a wide expanse of as yet but partially developed quartz leads. Here we find the streams draining to the east and northeast from off the eastern water-shed of the Rocky mountains. The bottom lands produce abundantly the hardier cereals and vegetables, while the hills furnish a limitless pasturage. On the mountains and high lands, where the vein mines are to be sought, the winters are long and of great severity. In many of the valleys, on the contrary, the snow falls so seldom and to such an insignificant depth that horses and cattle are able to subsist during the cold season without shelter and without care. The climate is particularly healthful, and the rare pure air of these elevated regions-the lowest being some thousands of feet above the sea level-conduces to both bodily and mental vigor.

GEOLOGY.-It is impossible at present to more than generally outline the main geological features of Montana. The want of a thorough scientific investigation of its mineral resources is just beginning to be felt, and as a knowledge of mines and mining becomes wider spread among the community, there will be a more persistent call for such surveys, and a better appreciation of the significance of the primary and secondary rocks as distinguished from drift and sedimentary deposits.

As already intimated, the formations of the Territory are marked by distinctive features in the east and west. We may dismiss a consideration of the former as connected with useful deposits other than carboniferous. The bad lands of these districts are prolific of fossils, petrifactions, &c., and afford an exhaustless and, as yet, unworked field of investigation for pure science. Drift and alluvium, spread over a wide expanse of low, rolling hills, terraces, and prairie, unbroken by other than occasional outcrops of sandstone, make up the majority of the east. The west, on the contrary, prolific of veins and placers, consists in the main of granite. The waters and glaciers have, likewise, given rise to very extensive gravel deposits merging into conglomerates of greater or less compactness. In the superficial inequalities of the mountains we find clay schists evidently of comparatively recent formation. Gneiss, mica shist, quartzite, pitchstone, and graywacke, likewise occur as subordinate local peculiarities. Talcose and reddish silicious slates, slightly charged with copper, and syenitic granite bearing gold are to be found in the mining regions. But most prominently as an ore-bearer, being, with granite, almost universal, we find large masses of blue, yellow, and occasionally whitish metamorphic limestone of a distinctly chrystalline structure and highly magnesian. This rock occurs apparently as an intercallation between dikes of quartzite and the grand granitic substratum of the country. It forms a species of mineral belt, disconnected, however, and generally in each district of limited extent.

Montana is rich in fossils, and hence the geologic age of the various formations admit of a reasonably easy determination. Aside from the above-mentioned prolific bad lands, there occurs near the summit of the range back of Virginia City a very heavy deposit of fossil shells. Individual specimens from this source are to be met with both on the surface and in the placer washings lower down the mountain, at that point where Alder gulch begins. Professor Swallow, State geologist of Missouri and Kansas, discovered a locality of fossils in the vicinity of the copper mines at the head of the Muscleshell river, which is so denominated from the great abundance of fresh water muscle shells found on its banks. I myself collected quite a number of fossils from the clay schists of Birch and Grasshopper creeks, in Beaver Head county, which, through the kindness of Dr. Blatchley, have been handed for determination to Professor Whitney, State geologist of California. The finest specimen was presented to me by a Mr. Taylor, residing near Bannock. It consisted of the lower jaw, incisors, and molars of some medium-sized graminivorous animal, and was in a particularly fine state of preservation. The fossil bore some resemblance to the teeth of a mountain sheep, an animal which, through uninterrupted pursuit, is fast becoming extinct. The fossils from Birch creek consisted entirely of the remains of shell fish. There was reported, in 1865, the discovery of the head bones and the skeleton of a buffalo, almost entire. They were found in Grizzly gulch, near Helena, lying immediately upon the bed rock, and covered up to a depth of 40 to 45 feet with wash gravel and alluvium. In the same year also there was discovered, on Meagher bar, opposite the town of Nevada, in Alder gulch, the lower jawbone of a member of the human family, measuring five inches from point to point of the condyles. An inferior maxillary of these dimensions would indicate soine giant individual of an extinct species from 10 to 12 feet in height. At the same time and place there was found an enormous fossil tooth, six inches long, four inches wide, and between eight and nine inches from the crown through to the lower portions of the root. Mr. T. H. Kleinschmidt, of Helena, has in his possession two enormous fossil teeth, exhumed, some two years since, from the wash gravel of Grizzly gulch.

The discovery of these fossils in the gold-bearing drift of Montana adds another link to the chain of evidence confirmatory of the truth of the statements of Professor Whitney, State geologist of California, as to the age of the placers. They show conclusively that their formation here in Montana was either coincident with, or but little subsequent to, the advent of the mammalia, and that some of them may have been deposited even as late as the age of man. These exuvia of extinct species of animals are preserved with the greatest difficulty, not only on account of their facility of crumbling on exposure to the air, but also from the apathy of the finders, who regard them curiously for the moment and then cast them aside into the neglected corners of their cabins.

MINING REGIONS.-Under this designation we embrace all placer deposits, both the superficial detrital formations and the deep-lying conglomerate-like cement diggings, as well as the infiltrated system of quartz veins. In general terms, we may designate both slopes of the Rocky mountains as pertaining to the mining regions.

The crests of the main chain, from the point of entering the Territory until reaching Mullan's Pass, in about latitude 464° and longitude 35° west of Washington, maintain a course very nearly north 40° west. From this locality they make a sharp turn to the southwest, and run on thus until they pass into Idaho. Within this limit the ridge is cut through in but one place by the far western affluents of the Big Hole branch of the Jefferson river. We find on the eastern slope two belts of ore-bearing country resembling an inverted V, the apex of which is towards the north. The left hand belt starts from Horse prairie below Bannock City, in the southwest; thence passes through Blue Wing, Argenta, and an eastern system parallel to the Silver Bow and Butte City districts on the west, and continues onward through Beavertown, Jefferson City, Helena, and Silver City, northwards. The second belt commences high up in the mountains south of Virginia City; passes thence northerly through Ramshorn, Brandon, &c., then disappears or gives but faint traces of its presence in the alluvial valley through which passes the river Jefferson, and shows itself again near Beavertown, from whence the two eastern belts pass northwardly as one. West of the crests of the main range we find not only less developed but also less continuous zones of impregnation. That the points of enrichment appear to be more isolated is owing, doubtless, to a less thorough prospecting. Further south, and drained by the westernmost affluent of the Big Hole-emptying its waters, it is true, to the east, but from its position preferably credited to the west-we find the rich but shallow diggings centring about French gulch, a locality long since worked over and abandoned.

Advancing northwardly we have a mineral belt just west of the crests of the main chain, at the head of the Blackfoot river, running nearly northwest and southeast, conformably to the trend of the mountains and corresponding to a western prolongation of the mineral belt of Silver Bow and Butte City.

We find still another belt southward of, and having a marked parallelism with, the general course of the Hell Gate river, bearing about west-northwest and east-southeast. This belt embraces Gold creek, the point where gold was first discovered, and likewise its continua tion on the head-waters of Flint creek, where, lately, there was reported the discovery of valuable gold-bearing quartz lodes. Hence, pursuing the same direction, we still find evidences of gold deposits on most of the affluents emptying into the Hell Gate further

west.

The most recent attraction for the migratory, restless race of miners, is a point on the western slope of the mountains far towards the northwest, and only a few miles distant from the line of the British possessions. The particular locality is said to be between the Jocko mission and Thompson's river, where there are believed to be both rich and extensive depos its forming those species of placer mines known as gulch and bar diggings. Many people have flocked thither, both from Montana and from the neighboring Territories. So great, indeed, has been the exodus from certain localities that many mining camps are entirely deserted. Whether the reported richness will be borne out by a closer examination remains to be proven. Such migrations are of too common occurrence in the history of placer mining to merit more than passing mention, except for the purpose of exemplifying a peculiar phase of life in the mountains. Washings yielding fair average returns are abandoned on the instant so soon as the whispered rumor spreads abroad that fabulous richness lies hidden on the bed rock of some far-off ravine. The tireless prospector dares wind and snow in the depth of winter to hunt up new placers, and seems to prefer such as are most inaccessible and most dangerous to explore on account of hostile Indians. On the approach of winter these "stampedes," as they are called, occur most frequently. The summer has yielded its harvests, favorable to some, but unfavorable to many, and winter begins to lock up for a six months' rest the watercourses which are indispensable to placer mining. Hence, the prospector, unable longer to continue his washings, starts forth to renew the chase of fortune, laden only with pick, pan, and shovel, and an amount of provisions measured by the length of his purse or the soundness of his credit. Sometimes in company, but more frequently solitary and alone, they carefully investigate such ravines, gulleys, &c., as experience or fancy may dictate. Buoyed up by the hope of ultimately striking it rich," they endure every spe cies of hardship and privation and not unfrequently are frozen to death. Amputations of frost-bitten hands and feet are of quite common occurrence.

This nomadic instinct, combined with practiced observation, alacrity in every emergency, and self-reliant bravery, has moulded à race of hardy pioneers, fit instruments to subdue the wilderness and the mountain-fastnesses. To such men are due the discovery of new mining regions in localities where no inducement other than the yellow dust will draw the white man. They pave the way for oncoming civilization, and leave to others the fairest fruits of their toils and privations. As soon as their old camping grounds become comparatively set tled and self-sustaining, these children of the frontier seek other ranges and wilder solitudes. Every fall and winter are marked by countless minor excitements and one or more gigantic stampedes, depopulating entire districts.

Up to the summer and fall of 1865 these migratory movements were in the main confined

to a comparatively circumscribed area, comprising what now constitutes the settled portion of the Territory,

The superficial placers having at this time begun to show symptoms of exhaustion, naturally gave rise to investigations of more distant localities. In January, 1866, a rush took place to the mouth of Sun river towards a point some 60 miles from Fort Benton. As a result no diggings of any value were discovered and a large number of the deluded enthusiasts were frozen to death. In July, of the same year, the placers of Little Blackfoot, Nevada gulch, and the Hell Gate country, all on the western slopes, attracted considerable attention, and remain until the present time a region of undiminished interest. In the fol lowing month of August there spreng up an intense excitement caused by the report of fabulously rich placers in the neighborhood of Fort Lemhi, in the Salmon river country of Idaho. In the same month a large number made their way to the Wind River mountains of Dakota, west and southwest of the extreme southern sources of the Yellowstone. Neither of these excitements appears to have justified expectation. That to Salmon river continued through the winters of 1866-'67. Thousands were drawn thither, and others kept pouring in until the disappearance of the snow late in the spring so far exposed the ground as emphatically to disprove the illusion. Men remained for many months exposed to the cruelties of a very severe winter, built up a large town, held unprospected claims at enormous figures, and at length abandoned the country in disgust, condemning as fiercely as they had previously unreasonably lauded it. In October also of 1866, a stampede of some magnitude was directed to the Saskatchawan country, 650 miles north of Helena and in the British possessions. No diggings of importance rewarded the prospectors.

No permanent prosperity and no fixed centres of population are possible until such time as the superficial placers have ceased to yield a prolific booty of easy extraction. The long rows of deserted habitations, once teeming with the busy life of a flourishing mining town, bear melancholy testimony to the inefficiency of the placers alone to lay the foundations of permanent towns and cities. The real prosperity of a mining country may be dated from the time when the majority of the gulches, bars, &c., are worked out, since, at such time, the people are compelled to turn their attention to the quartz veins, which alone promise permanency and a lasting source of revenue to well-directed enterprise. That many adventures terminate unfortunately; that vast sums are wasted through folly and ignorance, so culpable as almost to deserve to be branded as criminal, is not to be wondered at. The art of mining and the fundamental principles of metallurgy, as applied to the North American mineral regions, are of too recent formation to be, even in their general outlines, at all widely spread amongst the people. Hence, dazzled by a pursuit having as its immediate object the representatives of value in all civilized nations, viz., gold and silver, the majority of men lose sight of those primal economical considerations which no individual of practical business sense ever neglects or overlooks. They begin, not by counting the cost, but by rearing brilliant imaginary superstructures on a very meagre substratum of fact, and hence the magnificent proportions of the imposing edifice are in constant jeopardy from the faintest breathings of hard facts and common-sense reality.

Such opinions, the result of ignorance and malappreciation, must still continue until those men whose lives are devoted solely to the acquirement of a practical acquaintance with mining affairs shall have impressed upon the great body of the community the fundamental maxims necessary to successful mining. These may be summed up briefly as follows: First, a reasonably large estimate of cost; and, secondly, a just estimate of the average working yield by such process, either amalgamation or smelting, as may be determined upon by a reliable and competent authority. Undue haste in erecting mills and machinery before a sufficient degree of development is apparent, has been, more than any other cause, the fruitful source of failure and disappointment. Companies organized with an insufficient working capital, and blunderingly conducted, find their resources failing them precisely at the moment when most needed, and many mining adventures thus prove failures even when the mine itself is of real value.

DISTRIBUTION OF THE VARIOUS METALS AND MINERALS.-There seems to be no marked segregation from one another of the gold, silver, copper, or coal bearing localities, other than that the last mentioned is found mainly in the sedimentary formations of the east. Indeed, the phenomenon of double veins, so called, namely, those having pure smelting ores, as galenas, oxides and carbonates of lead on the one wall, and amalgamable noble silver minerals, as silver glance, stephanite, dark and light ruby silver, &c, &c., on the other, are of not uncommon occurrence. Gold is found over a wide extent of country, the main development of which, up to the present time, has been expended on placer deposits. Vein mining both for gold and silver is just beginning to come prominently into notice. Gold quartz of greater or less promise has been found in the immediate vicinity of all the localities once celebrated for their placers, viz: near Bannock, Virginia City, Helena City, Highland, &c., &c. Silver ores suitable for smelting are found in the Blue Wing and Argenta districts in the southwest, also in the vicinity of Jefferson City, in several of the districts near Helena, and in some of the mines of Flint creek and Mill creek. Silver ores suitable for amalgamation are found in Brown's gulch, in the neighborhood of Virginia City, and across the range in Deer Lodge county, on one of the branches of Flint creek, at Phillipsburg, &c., &c.

Copper ores, or such as carry a predominating percentage of this metal, are found among

the eastern foot-hills, near the sources of the Muscleshell river, also in the valley of the Prickly Pear, and west of the range near Butte City. Traces of this metal are found in nearly all the mining districts, and a most curious formation of a true copper placer is observable near Beavertown, a short distance south of Jefferson City. The particles of pure copper, pointed, yet apparently uncrystallized, seem, in this instance, to be held together by a species of quartzy detritus.

We find, also, clays and sandstones superimposed and underlying the coal beds in those places where the local peculiarities of the surface have proved favorable to sedimentary and deift formations-that is, mainly, as before stated, in the east, but likewise among the foothills and, in one or two well-known instances, quite high up on the mountains of the west. CENTRES OF POPULATION.--The chief centres of population in the Territory are three, viz: Bannock, Virginia and Helena cities. The motive of their foundation was the extent and profitableness of the placer deposits in their immediate vicinity. And since the limit of productiveness of the superficial placers may be determined to a degree of reasonable exactness, it is necessary to establish a claim to other local resources in order to maintain in the future the relative pre-eminence of the past.

First in the order of settlement we find Bannock City, formerly called East Bannock, in contradistinction to another town of the same name lying to the southwest, and then likewise in the Territory of Idaho. The diggings were discovered in the summer of 1862 by one John White, from Colorado. The town is situated in a narrow gorge in the midst of a series of rolling hills. Through it there flows a considerable stream of water, called Willard's or Grasshopper creek, which is a tributary to one of the three chief affluents of the Jefferson river. Considerable mining was done the year of discovery. The majority of the claims paid well and uniformily without any surprisingly rich yields. The gold produced was of a very high rate of fineness, coining $19 50 per ounce. One particularly clean and choice lot, of upwards of $20,000, taken from a single claim, coined the very unusual sum of a few cents over $20 per ounce; that is very nearly as much as pure gold, which is valued at $20 67 per ounce. The placer deposits are still an object of pursuit, although the main reliance in the future must be the vein mines opposite to and below the town. The rocks of the vicinity are granite and metamorphic limestone, carrying the ore-bearing quartz lodes. We find some quartzite, and above the town clays and sandstones, with a considerable deposit of alluvium along the immediate borders of the creek.

The first territorial legislature assembled here, and among its other enactments promul gated a series of laws determining the method of location, record, tenure, &c., of lode claims. These laws, although in the main modelled after the miner's customs of Idaho, which were in force up to and for some months subsequent to the date of segregation therefrom of Montana, were, nevertheless, altered in several minor and one or more fundamental points. The Idaho legislature did not attempt by statutory enactment to define the rights, privileges and penalties of the miners, but, according to the civil practice act, permitted to be brought in evidence "proof of the customs, usages or regulations established and in force in the mining districts, embracing such claims and such customs, usages or regulations, when not in conflict with the laws of the Territory, shall govern the decision of the action." (Civil Practice Act, sec. 576.) As showing the animus of the framers, and the opinions in vogue in Montana at this period, it may not be inadmissible to insert these laws here.

We may premise by stating that these mid-continental Territories are stamped with the impress of Colorado. From geographical contiguity, and the fact that the bulk of the early immigration found its way hither from the east, it is only to be expected that the mining legislation should show unmistakable evidences of its origin, and hence be clearly distinguishable from that of the west. A comparison of the two systems, in many respects fundamentally at variance, will be touched upon hereafter.

AN ACT relating to the discovery of gold and silver quartz leads, lodes, or ledges, and of the manner of their location. (Approved December 26, 1864.)

Be it enacted by the legislative assembly of the Territory of Montana, That any person who may hereafter discover any quartz lead, lode, or ledge, shall be entitled to one claim thereon by right of discovery, and one claim each by pre-emption.

SEC. 2. That in order to entitle any person or persons to record in the county recorder's office of the proper county, any lead, lode, or ledge, either of gold or silver, or claim thereon, there shall first be discovcred on said lead, lode, or ledge a vein or crevice of quartz or ore, with at least one well-defined wall.

SEC. 3. Claims on any lead, lode, or ledge, either of gold or silver, hereafter discovered, shall consist of not more than 200 feet along the lead, lode, or ledge, together with all dips, spurs, and angles emanating of diverging from said lead, lode, or ledge, as also 50 feet on each side of said lead, lode, or ledge, for working purposes: Provided, That when two or more leads, lodes, or ledges shall be discovered within 100 feet of each other, either running parallel or crossing cach other, the ground between such leads, lodes, or ledges shall belong equally to the claimants of said leads, lodes, or ledges, without regard to priority of discovery or pre-emption.

SEC. 4. When any leads, lodes, or ledges shall cross each other, the quartz, ore, or mineral in the crevice or vein at the place of crossing shall belong to and be the property of the claimants upon the lead, lode, or ledge first discovered.

SEC. 5. That before any record shall be made, under the provisions of this act, there shall be placed at cach extremity of the discovered claim a good and substantial stake, not less than five inches in diameter, said stake to be firmly planted or sunken in the ground, extending two feet above the ground; that upon each stake there shall be placed, in legible characters, the name of the lead, lode, or ledge, and that of the discoverer or discoverers, the date of discovery, and the name of each pre-emptor or claimant, and the direction or bearing, as near as may be, of his or her claim; said stake and the inscription thereon to