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 eography and geology of 
 Fergus county. 
 
 by 
 
 Otis Y.'illard Freeman
 
 

 
 efcna*a,P<u>. - s^b. ivi ~ 
 
 e»
 
 Fergus County 
 HIGH SCHOOL 
 
 BULLETIN 2 
 
 GEOGRAPHY 
 and GEOLOGY 
 
 OF FERGUS COUNTY 
 
 . 
 
 BY o. w. freeman 
 
 .' 
 
 I i wis 1 1 )wn, Montana 
 1919
 
 PREFACE 
 
 This Geography and Economic Geology of Fergus County is intended 
 to furnish information upon a variety of subjects. It is hoped that it 
 will be of use in the public schools to the casual reader, and to the student. 
 A large amount of research was devoted to securing the historical data and 
 correct origin of geographic names, and the author expresses his sincere 
 thanks for assistance rendered him by many citizens of Fergus County in 
 securing this information, especially to R. von Tobel and W. A. Hedges. 
 Thanks are also due the Bureau of Agriculture and Publicity at Helena 
 for the plate used in printing the map of Fergus County and to the Cook- 
 Reynolds Co. for permission to use several half tones. Superintendent 
 P. V. Cardon of the Moccasin Experiment Station gave some excellent sug- 
 gestions for the chapter on soils and their effect on agriculture. 
 
 There has been a constant demand for general information regarding 
 the geology and mineral resources of the county, and practically every 
 mine, prospect and corner of the county has been visited in the prepara- 
 tion of this report. Lack of space forbade a more detailed report, and 
 those in search of detailed information are referred to the special reports 
 listed in the bibliography that contains the more useful of the publications 
 on the county. Publications of U. S. Geological Survey were of much value 
 in the preparation of the chapter on Geology. The author is willing at 
 all times to furnish any further information that may be in his possession 
 and to co-operate with anyone interested in the lines covered by the report. 
 Those wishing a copy of this report can obtain it gratis by addressing the 
 Board of Trustees of the Fergus County High School at Lewistown, or the 
 principal of the institution. The author requests the forbearance of the 
 reader of this bulletin, as it was prepared under the stress of many other 
 duties, and was seriously hampered by the incendiary fire that destroyed 
 photographs, halftone engravings and much data that had been gathered 
 for use in the bulletin. If any reader can furnish further information 
 about the early history, geography and mineral resources of the county, 
 they are urged to communicate such information to the author or other 
 instructors connected with the High School, as it is hoped to make the 
 institution a clearing house of accurate information about the county. 
 
 This is the second bulletin to be issued by the Board of Trustees of the 
 Fergus County High School, Bulletin No. l was published over a decade 
 ago on the "Bird of Fergus County" and the author was Mr. P. M. Slllo- 
 way, a former principal of the High School 
 
 The fire that destroyed the school liuldiriK last year unfortunately also 
 destroyed almost .ill of the COpiei of this bulletin. Other bulletins are 
 
 planned for the future on the "History and Crrici of ETergui County," etc. 
 The writer wishes to commend the long-elghted wisdom and broad mind- 
 
 edness of the Board of Trustees shown liy I heir effort! to disseminate local 
 information by means of these bulletins. 
 
 SOS 197
 
 LIST OF CHAPTERS 
 
 Chapter I. 
 
 Area, Location, Physical Features and Development of Fergus Co Page 9 
 
 Chapter II. 
 
 Towns and Cities of Fergus County Page 12 
 
 Chapter III. 
 
 Rocks and Mineral of Fergus County Page 15 
 
 Chapter IV. 
 
 Geology of Fergus County Page 22 
 
 Chapter V. 
 
 Metal Deposits of Fergus County and Their Development Page 28 
 
 Chapter VI. 
 
 Mineral Fuel Resources of Fergus County and Their Development. ...Page 3 7 
 
 Chapter VII. 
 
 Non-Metallic Minerals Other Than Fuels Page 42 
 
 Chapter VIII. 
 
 Picturesque Fergus County Page 46 
 
 Chapter IX. 
 
 Climate and Ground Water Page 51 
 
 Chapter X. 
 
 The Soil of Fergus County and Its Influence on Agriculture Page 56 
 
 Chapter XI. 
 
 Geographic Influences in Fergus County Page 59 
 
 Chapter XII. 
 Origin of the Geographic Names in Fergus County Page 62
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 GENERAL — 
 
 Fergus County Argus, August 15 1913, special Historical Edition. 
 
 Lewis and Clark's Journal, edited* by Twaithes. 
 
 "Montana," 191S and previous years published annually by Bureau of 
 
 Agriculture and Publicity at Helena. 
 Booklets on Montana and the Judith Basin, published by the Great 
 
 Northern Railway, C, M. & St. Railway, Lewistown Chamber of 
 
 Commerce, etc. 
 Montana Historical and Pioneer Society. Volumes 1-8. 
 Mineral Resources of U. S., published annually by U. S. Geological 
 
 Survey, Washington, D. C. 
 
 SPECIAL — 
 
 Bowen, C. F. — Coal discovered between Musselshell and Judith. 
 
 Bull. 541 H., 39-47 U. S. Geological Survey, 1914. 
 Burke, Edmund and Pinckney, R. M. — Report on Montana Climate. 
 
 Bull. 99, Mont. Agri. College Exp. Station, Bozeman, 1914. 
 Calhoun, F. F. H.— Montana Lobe of the Keewatis Ice Sheet, Prof. 
 
 Paper 50, U. S. Geol. Survey, 1906. 
 Calvert, W. R. — Geology of the Lewistown Coal Field. Bull. 390, 
 
 U. S. Geol. Survey, 1909. 
 Donaldson, N. C. — Cereal experiments at the Judith Basin Substation. 
 
 Bull. 398, Bureau of Plant Industry, Washington, 1916. 
 Fisher C. A. — Geology of the Great Falls Coal Field, Montana. Bull. 
 
 356, U. S. Geol. Survey, 1909. 
 Freeman, O. W. — Montana, a Stury of the Geographic Factors Influ- 
 encing the State. Bull., Geog. Soc. of Philadelphia, Vol. 12, Oc- 
 tober, 1914. 
 
 The North .Moccasin Mountains of Montana, Min. A Eng, World, Vol. 
 
 42, May 22. 191 5, !'. 9 17-949. 
 
 Sapphire .Mines of Yogo, Molilalia. Min. & Sci. Press, Vol. 110 Ma] 
 
 22, 1 91 5, P 800-802. 
 
 Gold Mining in the Judith Mountains, Montana. Min. A Sci. Press, 
 
 Vol. 112, June 1". L916, P 81 
 
 Geographic influences Affecting Distribution of Population and Char 
 
 actor of hniu: i ties in Montana, tnter-Mountaln [Educator, 
 January, 1 8 1 6. 
 
 Gypsum and Lime industry In Central Montana, B2ng A Min World. 
 
 Vol 16 Oct ii. L916, P. 66 
 
 Mineral Prospects in Fergus County, Montana, Eng & Min Joui 
 
 Vol 103, P. 660 662, April l I. L917. 
 
 New Three Forks Cement riant Conci at Mill Edition, 
 
 Ma rcli. 1918, P 80 81 
 
 The i. iiv -.i the Brick, Piaster and Cement industries of Mon 
 
 tana inter Mountain Educator, June, 1918, P Lfl 
 Harding, s. T. irrigation Development In Montana. Bull. I 1 '.''-. Mont 
 Agri Col ta Bozeman, i B 1 5 
 
 Hoyt, B. K The Judith Mountains, Montana. Min A Eng World, 
 
 Vol. 1 1 . Nov. 21, 1914, P
 
 -Gold Hill Section of the Maiden District, Montana, Min. & Eng. 
 World, Vol. 42, January 23, 1915, P. 171-172. 
 
 Pirsson, Louis V., Igneous Rocks of the Highwood Mountains. Bull 
 287, 0. S. Geol. Survey. 
 
 Rowe J. P., Some Economic Geology of Montana. Bull 50, Univer- 
 sity of Montana, Missoula. 
 
 Stanton, T. W.. Hatcher, J. B. and Knowlton, F. H., Geology and 
 Paleontology of the Judith River Beds. Bull. U. S. Geol. Sur- 
 vey, 257, 1905. 
 
 Stebinger, Eugene — Possibilities of Oil and Gas in North Central Mon- 
 tana. Bull 641-C, U. S. Geol. Survey, 1916. 
 
 Stephens, J. M. — Fergus County Substation Work and Plans. Agri. 
 Col. Exp. Station, Bull. 93, Bozeman, 1913. 
 
 Weed W. H. — Geol. Atlas, U. S., Fort Benton, folio (55), U. S. Geol. 
 
 Survey 1899. 
 -Geol. Atlas U. S., Little Belt Mountains, folio (56), U. S. G. S., 1899. 
 
 Weed, W. H., and Pirsson, L. V., Geology and Mineral Resources of the 
 Judith Mountains; 18th annual report, Part III., U. S. Geol. 
 Survey, P. 440-616, 1896. 
 -Geology and Mineral Resources of the Little Belt Mountains, 20th 
 Annual Report, U. S. Geol. Survey, Part III., P. 257-258, 1899.
 
 _ 
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 3
 
 GEOGRAPHY AND ECONOMIC GEOLOGY 
 OF FERGUS COUNTY 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Area, Location, Physical Features and Development of Fergus County. 
 
 Fergus County is in the center of the State of Montana. It has an 
 area of about 7,300 square miles and is the largest county in the state. 
 It is almost as large as the State of Massachusetts. Its greatest length 
 is about 122 miles, or nearly as far as from New York to Albany, and 
 its greatest width is about 78 miles. 
 
 The center of Fergus County is about 109 west longitude and 47 
 north latitude. The Missouri River forms the northern boundary of Fergus 
 County and the Musselshell River forms the eastern boundary; Arrow 
 Creek forms part of the northwestern boundary; Chouteau, Blaine and 
 Phillips Counties lie to the north; Garfield County, and a few miles 
 of Rosebud County to the east of Fergus. Musselshell, Wheatland and 
 a corner of Meagher Counties bound Fergus on the south, and Cascade 
 on the west. More counties touch Fergus than any other in the state. 
 
 The county forms a part of the Great Plains Province, in which is 
 included the eastern two-thirds of Montana. The lowest altitude is at 
 the mouth of the Musselshell River, about 2,300 feet, and the highest, 
 on the summit of the Snowy Mountains, over 8,600 feet. Lewistown 
 has an altitude of abut 3,900 feet, which is a little over the average 
 for the county. The Big Snowy Mountains extend about 25 miles on 
 the southern boundary of the county. The Judith Mountains are in 
 about the middle of the county and reach an elevation of over 6,000 
 feet, nearly half a mile above the plains about their base. West of 
 the Judiths a few miles are two small isolated mountain groups, the 
 North Moccasins and the South Moccasins. A connected series of high 
 hills extend south from the Judiths to Alaska Bench east of the Big 
 Snowy Mountains and are known collectively as the McDonald Creek 
 Divide. A very wooded country is found east and northeast of the 
 Big Snowy Mountains, which has been rather Inaptly named the Little 
 Snowies. Black Butte, nearly 6,000 Feel high, east of the Judiths, forms 
 a prominent landmark for Hasten) and Northern Fergus County. The 
 Little Belt Mountains are found In Southwestern Fergus and their main 
 eastward extending ridge forms part of the boundary of Fergus County. 
 Over the line in Chouteau County are the sharp peaked Hlghwood Moun- 
 tains with flat-topped Squire Butte east Of them, which forms the most 
 t'amous landmark of Central Montana Across the Missouri, the Bear- 
 paw and Little Rocky Mountain! are visible from half of Fergus County 
 
 Western FergUS County is almost surrounded by mountains and form 
 
 the widely known Judith Basin Between the Little Bell and Big Snowy 
 
 Mountains is Judith Cap, which Is the most practicable route north and 
 pouth for automobiles or railroads between Tyler and Nelhart, a distance 
 of about 90 miles an auto road could be built in the ralley between 
 Alaska Bench and the Big Snowies without much trouble that would
 
 —10 — 
 
 make a good outlet for the north side of Musselshell County for trade 
 and communication with Lewistown. 
 
 Outside the mountains the usual surface of the county is composed 
 of extensive benches, slightly sloping for miles from the mountains to- 
 wards the main drainage lines, or especially in Eastern and Northern 
 Fergus, of a gently rolling country, with broad valleys. The Missouri 
 and Musselshell Rivers have entrenched themselves several hundred feet 
 below the level of the Great Plains, and steep breaks or badlands have 
 thus developed between the benches and the valley flats or broad plains 
 commencing to be formed along the rivers. The tributaries to the 
 large rivers have often cut back for many miles into the benches, eroding 
 them into extensive badlands. 
 
 The Judith River is the chief stream that has its source in Fergus 
 County. It rises in the Little Belts and flows across the Judith Basin 
 into the Missouri. Its chief tributaries on the east are Big Spring, Ross 
 Fork and Warm Spring Creek; Running Wolf and Sage Creeks are 
 of the most importance on the west. Arrow Creek rises in the Highwoods, 
 and Dog Creek has its source in the North Moccasin Mountains. Both 
 empty into the Missouri a few miles from the mouth of the Judith, in 
 Northwestern Fergus. The chief streams of Eastern Fergus are Flat- 
 willow, McDonald and Box Elder Creeks, which rise mainly in the Snowy 
 and Judith Mountains and unite a few miles above where Flatwillow 
 empties into the Musselshell in Southeastern Fergus. Armells Creek 
 flows from the Judiths northeast to the Missouri. Crooked Creek drains 
 Northeastern Fergus and flows into the Musselshell about two miles 
 from where it empties into the Missouri. 
 
 The rich well grassed valley of the Judith River furnished an ideal 
 range for the buffalo. It was sheltered from the blizzards of the plains 
 by the surrounding mountains, and was a favorite resort of the Indians. 
 French Canadian fur traders were probably the first representatives of 
 the white race to visit Montana, and a few of them, led by De la Verendye, 
 explored Central Montana in 1743. Lewis and Clark's expedition ascended 
 the Missouri River in 1805 and discovered and named the Musselshell and 
 Judith Rivers in May of that year. Many trappers and traders followed 
 this expedition and trapped and hunted beaver, wolves and buffalo for 
 many years. Small forts were established near the mouth of the Judith 
 River in 1832 and 1842, but were abandoned after a few months. After 
 the discovery of gold at Virginia City and Helena, steamboat traffic greatly 
 increased on the Missouri River. During periods of low water the boats 
 were unable to ascend the river to Fort Benton and their cargoes were 
 landed at Cow Island and Fort Musselshell, and hauled by bull teams 
 across the Judith Basin through Judith Gap to White Sulphur Springs, 
 and thence over the Belt Mountains by way of Diamond City and Canyon 
 Ferry to Helena. As a result of trouble with the Sioux Indians, Fort 
 .Musselshell, which had been founded in 1866, was abandoned in 1874 
 as a trading post and steamboat landing in favor of Carroll, at the 
 present site of Wilder. 
 
 Commencing in the sixties, freighters often wintered in the Basin, 
 being attracted by the splendid growth of grass, and by the seventies 
 there were several well recognized camping sites in the county, as at 
 Camp Lewis, at the junction of Big Casino and Big Spring Creeks. Many 
 stockmen and miners came into the county in the late seventies and
 
 -11 — 
 
 early eighties and several little settlements were started. Reed's Fort, 
 on the site of Lewistown, was built in 1873 and a postoffice established in 
 1880. Soon after this the original townsite of Lewistown was platted from 
 part of F. A. Janeaux's homestead, and since only a few people were 
 expected to live there, a fence was takn as a starting point, with the 
 result that the streets of Lewistown do not run with the compass. The 
 discovery of gold at Yogo, in the Belt Mountains, led to a rush there in 
 1879, but the deposits proved disappointing and the town was soon prac- 
 tically abandoned. Maiden was founded in 1S80 as a result of gold be- 
 ing discovered there. Fort Maginniss was built in 1880 and garrisoned 
 with U. S. troops to protect the cattle and sheep men from the Indians. 
 Old Cottonwood, Philbrook (four miles from the site of Hobson), old 
 Stanford (about two miles from present site), Grass Range, old Geyser 
 (just over the line in Cascade County), Oka, Ubet, Bercail (just south 
 of Judith Gap), Utica, Maiden and Lewistown were the chief centers 
 where the ranchers of the eighties could purchase supplies, and the cow- 
 boys and miners buy strong drink or satisfy their taste for gambling. 
 Gilt Edge was started in 18 93 when gold was discovered there. 
 
 Until the construction of the Montana Railroad (called the "Jawbone") 
 to Lewistown in 1905, goods were freighted into the Judith Basin country 
 from Fort Benton, Helena and Billings. From 1880 to 1905 mining and 
 stock raising were the chief industries in Fergus County. Since then 
 grain gowing has proved to be a very profitable enterprise, and thousands 
 of homesteaders came into the county. In the last 15 years the greater 
 part of Fergus County has been homesteaded and little excpt vry rough 
 land remains open to entry. Several branch railroads have been built 
 primarily to haul the grain to market and many cities and towns have 
 been founded as supply centers and grain shipping points for the farmers. 
 
 Fergus County was organized in 1885 and included the territory be- 
 tween the Musselshell and Missouri Rivers. Musselshell County was 
 formed in 1912 and included thai part of Fergus County south of the 
 Snowy Mountains. Our county was named after James Fergus, one of 
 the pioneer stockmen, who settled at Armella n 1880. 
 
 I \ i'i m MODKHN i:i i: u. school.
 
 — 12 — 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Cities and Towns of Fergus County. 
 
 The population of Fergus County in 1919 is over 40,000 compared 
 with 17,385 in 1910, 6,937 in 1900 and 3,514 in 1890, when Fergus 
 County included much of what is now Musselshell County. 
 
 The Great Northern Railway between Billings and Great Falls runs 
 through Fergus County with a branch to Lewistown from Moccasin. This 
 branch will soon be extended east from Lewistown 200 miles to connect 
 with the Great Northern extension in Dawson County, which is completed 
 to Richey. The Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad has a branch 
 from Harlowton to Great Falls passing through the county. From Lewis- 
 town, branches of the Milwaukee extend east to Winnett and north to 
 Hilger and Winifred, with another branch from Hilger to Roy. 
 
 Lewistown, the county seat of Fergus County, has a population of 8,000. 
 It has paved streets, municipal water system, and remarkably fine office 
 buildings, churches and public buildings for a city of its size. The county 
 fair is held annually in Lewistown. There are four public schools and 
 one county high school, three newspapers and a monthly magazine. 
 Lewistown has four banks with combined resources of over $7,000,000. 
 There are four wholesale houses, two creameries, a brick yard, concrete 
 tile works, flour mill, railroad repair shop, planing mill, good hotels and 
 many modern stores, garages, lumber yards, etc., that carry very com- 
 plete stocks. South Lewistown is at the Milwaukee Railroad yards. Seven 
 miles west of Lewistown at Hanover, is a large new portland cement 
 plant and a gypsum wall plaster mill. 
 
 Moore has a population of about 700. It is on the Milwauke Railroad 
 and is the trading center for a very rich farming district. It is a modern 
 city with good schools and churches, newspaper, strong banks, large ele- 
 vators and up-to-date stores. Glengary is a small grain shipping point 
 between Lewistown and Moore. 
 
 Garneill and Straw are small towns on the Milwaukee Railroad, south 
 of Moore, and are situated in rich farming districts. 
 
 Denton has a population of over 600 and is the largest city in North- 
 western Fergus County. It has two newspapers, flour mill, four eleva- 
 tors, good schools, banks and store buildings and many modern resi- 
 dences. An immense amount of wheat is annually shipped from here. 
 
 Coffee Creek has a population of about 200. It has four elevators and 
 is an important shipping point for wheat and trading center for the 
 ranchers of the Arrow Creeek bench. Amherst, Ware, Danvers and Hoosac 
 are railways stations and trading points of local importance betkeen 
 Lewistown and Denton. Arrow Creek, beyond Denton, is also a shipping 
 point for grain. Everson is a small trading point 28 miles north of 
 Denton. 
 
 A number of good towns are found along the Great Northern through 
 the Judith Basin. Buffalo is the center of an excellent farming district 
 in the southern part. 
 
 Hobson is in the center of the Judith Basin and has a population of 
 about 400. It has a flour mill, elevators, newspaper, good schools, banks 
 and stores. Utica, 12 miles west of Hobson, is an old town, founded 
 in the days of the cattlemen. A splendid farming country lies between 
 Hobson and Utica. 
 
 Moccasin and Benchland are good small towns on the Great Northern
 
 —13— 
 
 and are important grain shipping points. Moccasin has a population of 
 about 250 and considerable business is done there. The Great Northern 
 branch to Lewistown starts there. The largest town between Moccasin 
 and Lewistown is Hanover, which has a population of about 350 and 
 is a company town, built by the Three Forks Cement Company. The 
 cement plant and gypsum mill provide employment for about 125 men. 
 Kolin and Ross Fork are important grain shipping stations. 
 
 Windham is a town of about 300 and is in a good farming country. 
 It has stores, newspaper, bank, elevators, etc. Lehigh is a coal mining 
 town, five miles from Windham. It has a population of nearly 1,500, 
 making it the second largest cbmmunity in Fergus County. The Cotton- 
 wood Coal Company operates two mines there with an output of 1,000 
 tons daily, which is mostly used by the Great Northern Railway. Six 
 hundred men are employed in the mines. Lehigh is a company town 
 and the company retains ownership of the buildings. It has a bank, 
 good stores, hospital, large coal washing plant, etc. A branch railroad 
 connects it with Windham. 
 
 Stanford is an important city in Western Fergus County. It has 
 a population of 500. Stanford has good stores, banks, newspaper, 
 churches, city hall, elevators, etc. There is excellent farm land around 
 it. Dover and Merino are stations on the Great Northern, west of 
 Stanford. 
 
 North of Lewistown on the Milwaukee, Hilger, population 300, is 
 an important trading and shipping center. It is the railway station for 
 Kendall, (population 400), a good mining town, five miles west. Two 
 mines at Kendall are operating and produce about half a million dollars 
 of gold a year. The mines at Kendall have produced in all about $9,000,000 
 :'n gold. There is excellent farming and grazing contributary to Hilger, 
 and to Brooks, which is 10 miles north of Lewistown. 
 
 Christina and Suffolk are small towns on the railroad between Hilger 
 and Winifred, and Armells is between Hilger and Roy. 
 
 Winifred is a city of about 400 inhabitants and the terminus of the 
 Hog Creek branch of the Milwaukee. An Immense grain growing and 
 stock raising territory is tributary to Winifred. The town was started 
 in 1913 and now has banks, elevators, Stores and substantial business 
 blocks. 
 
 Roy has a population of about ."..">'» and is ill.' terminus of a branch 
 of the Milwaukee from Hilger. a great area of grazing and agricultural 
 
 land extends for miles around Roy. It is an important trading and ship- 
 ping town and mucfa business Is done there Valentine is 25 miles east 
 of Roy and is a good small town, in the mid t "i many undeveloped re- 
 irces. Lack of transportation bolda bach development The country 
 north of Roy ami Valentine ba been bom< teaded *ery extensively in 
 the past ii ear Llndstrom It a po tofflce between Roj and Valentine 
 
 Maiden, in Urn In-art of the Judltfa Mountains, an. I (Jilt Edge, 18 mil. 
 
 northeast of Lewistown, are old gold mining towna While they iho* 
 many evidences "i of the mining Industrj yel mines ami milla 
 still operated ami a production ol nearly a quarter ol a million doll 
 in gold i reached annually Iboul |10, ,1 in gold ba been pro 
 
 duced from Ho- gold mint In tb( I towns.
 
 —14— 
 
 There are two important cities east of Lewistown, on the Milwaukee 
 Railroad. Grass Range and Winnett. 
 
 Grass Range (population 300), has banks, newspapers, elevators, hotels, 
 creamery, Hour mill and good stores. It is the trading point for a big 
 farming and good stock country. Forest Grove is a small town on the 
 railroad between Lewistown and Grass Range. Teigen is between Grass 
 Range and Winnett. Cheadle and Novary are east of Lewistown, on the 
 Great Northern extension. 
 
 Tyler is a small settlement about 15 miles south of Grass Range, in 
 Southern Fergus County. 
 
 Winnett is a modern city of 450 inhabitants, and the present terminus 
 of the Milwaukee railroad. Two large, private irrigation projects are 
 in successful operation within a few miles of the city, and vast acreage, 
 suitable for the growing of spring wheat and corn, is available for 
 farming by dry land methods. Smith is a postoffice about 12 miles 
 east of Winnett on the proposed extension of the Great Northern and 
 the Milwaukee. Flatwillow is a postoffice about 15 miles south of 
 Winnett. 
 
 N BAR RANCH.
 
 — 15— 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Rocks and Minerals of Fergus County. 
 
 The rocks of Fergus County include both igneous and sedimentary. 
 The sedimentary rocks include both oceanic and terrestial sandstone, con- 
 glomerate and limestone, besides shale, coal, gypsum and volcanic ash. 
 The igneous rocks include both extrusive and intusive types. The High- 
 woods consist chiefly of old volcanoes built of lava flows but are outside 
 the boundary of Fergus County. The extrusive rocks in the county are 
 volcanic deposits along Arrow Creek, near the Highwoods. Intrusive igne- 
 ous rocks are of many types. Those of the Judiths are fully described by 
 L. V. Pirsson in the Eighteenth Annual Report U. S. Geological Survey, 
 pages 557-587; those of the Little Belts in the Twentieth Annual Report 
 U. S. Geological Survey, pages 463-581, and those of the Highwoods in 
 Bulletin 257. Those interested in a complete description of the rocks are 
 referred to these reports. The chief igneous rocks will be described 
 very briefly in this bulletin. 
 
 The igneous rocks intrduded sedimentary strata in the form of lac- 
 coliths, stocks, sills and dikes. The laccoliths chiefly intrude Cambrian 
 and Mesozoic shales and cause an arching up of the overlying strata to 
 form great domes. Laccolithic intrusions account for the Judith and 
 Moccasin Mountains and for Square Butte, Cone Butte, Wolf Butte, Black 
 Butte and for some peaks in the Little Belts. In stocks, the igneous 
 rocks have broken across the sedimentary rocks more than uplifting them 
 and the intrusions are larger. Big Baldy Mountain, Yogo Peak and 
 Woodhurst Mountain, in the Little Belts, and Judith Peak, in the Judiths, 
 result from stocks. Sills are igneous intrusions along bedding planes of 
 sedimentary rock and are common in the Moccasins and Judiths. Dikes 
 are rather vertical intrusions that fill cracks in the sedimentary or other 
 igneous rocks. They occur in the Judiths and Little Belts and are very 
 common around the Highwoods radiating out in all directions from the 
 mountains. A few igneous dikes occur in Northern Fergus County, near 
 the Missouri River. 
 
 Except for a few dark colored, basic dikes along the Missouri and the 
 sapphire bearing dike at Yogo, the igneous rocks are of an acid char- 
 acter usually low in linn-, iron and magnesia arid an; Light colored in 
 appearance. They are high in silica, often 7 a per cent. Feldspar is a 
 common mineral constituent ami often orthodase is found in very well 
 developed large crystals, which results in the rock being classified as a 
 porphyry. The igneous rocks include granite, rhyolite, syenite, diorite 
 and phonollte porphyries in the .ludths and granite, diorite and phono- 
 lite and rhyolite porphyries in the Moccasin The rhyolite porphyry 1h 
 often called "quartz porphyry" ami is the most common rock of the 
 mountains, syenite, granite, diorite, monzonite and shonklnlte por 
 phyries are found in the intrusive bodies of the Little Belts The rocks 
 of Square Butte ami of the phonollte dikes of the Judiths are high in 
 
 potash and other alkal 'I he most common Igl i rockl in the 
 
 mountains consist of quartz, orthoclase, feldspar and biotlte mica and 
 is rather easily decomposed and di Integrated by the sreather, ho that 
 good exposures are few.
 
 —16 — 
 
 MINERALS. 
 Elements. 
 
 Few native elements have been found in Fergus County. Gold is 
 by far the most important metal found. Usually the gold ores contain 
 no visible gold, but rich pockets in the Spotted Horse and other mines 
 at Maiden were filled with both free gold and tellurides of gold. 
 
 Some placers contained native gold in Alpine Gulch and on Armells 
 Creek inthe Judiths, in the North Moccasins, and at Yogo, in the 
 Little Belt Mountains. Gold is a soft metal and it is nearly 19 times as 
 heavy as water. No crystals of gold have been found. Gold occurs in 
 small veins in igneous rock and in replacement deposits along the con- 
 tact of limestone and intrusive porphyry. No native silver has been 
 found, but a small specimen of native copper was picked up as float in the 
 North Moccasins. It was probably formed by reduction from the original 
 sulphides. 
 
 Among non-metals, graphite and sulphur occur in the native state 
 in Fergus County, but not in commercial deposits. Graphite is only 
 about twice as heavy as water and is quite soft. It is black in color and 
 has a black streak. It is found at Black Butte, where it was formed 
 by Cretaceous coal being metamorphosed by being brought into contact 
 with intrusive igneous rock. The graphite is compact but will not burn. 
 Coal is very common in the Kootenai and Judith River formations and 
 occurs in thin beds in other formations. Small amounts of native sulphur 
 have been observed in moist black shale of the Ellis formation and Cre- 
 taceous shales where it probably results from the reduction of gypsum. 
 It is whitish yellow in color, insoluble and light in weight. It burns with 
 the characteristic odor of burning sulphur. The sulphur has been found 
 near the head of McDonald Creek and small traces in the badlands. 
 
 Sulphides and Tellurides. 
 
 Argentite or silver glance. Silver sulphide crystallizes h. eubes and 
 octahedrons, but good crystals are seldom found in Fergus, although 
 common at Neihart, in the Little Belts. It is blackish gray in color and 
 streak and has a metallic luster. Argentine occurs with lead and zinc 
 sulphides, and has been found near Gilt Edge, Maiden and Armells, in 
 the Judiths; Wolf Creek, in the Little Belts, and in the Moccasins. . The 
 total production of silver in Fergus County is probably $30,000-$40,000. 
 
 Galena is the lead sulphide. This is the important ore of lead and 
 usually contains silver and zinc in Fergus County and often a little cop- 
 per. Crystallizes in cubes and octahedrons, but usually found in dissemin- 
 ated masses. Galena possesses perfect cubical cleavage, has a bright me- 
 tallic luster and a lead gray color and streak. The mineral is easily 
 scratched and is 7% times as heavy as water. Galena has been found 
 chiefly in pockets as a replacement of limestone near the contact with 
 intrusive porphyry. Occurs at Cave mine, on Armells Creek; War Eagle, 
 at Maiden; West Kendall, in the North Moccasins; Hardly Able, in the 
 South Moccasins; near Gilt Edge, in Cone Butte district, and on Wolf 
 Creek, in the Little Belts. Probably over $100,000 in lead has been pro- 
 duced from Fergus County mines, all of which were small. 
 
 Spalerite, zinc blend or black jack. Zinc sulphide crystallizes in cubes 
 and tetrahedrons but crystals are very rare in Fergus County, where it
 
 — 17 — 
 
 is usually found with massive galena. Harder and lighter in weight than 
 galena. Usually has a metallic luster but it may be resinous. Color is 
 brown or black and the streak is light yellowish. Spalerite often is 
 found with galena in Fergus County as near Gilt Edge and on Wolf 
 Creek, in the Belts, and on the Hardly Able and War Eagle properties. 
 It is unwelcome to the miner as when present in considerable amounts 
 it interferes with the smelting of the lead. Hence the smelters penalize 
 such ores instead of paying for their zinc content. The result is that the 
 mining of lead zinc ores has usually proved unprofitable in the county and 
 the total production of zinc has been valued at only a few thousand dollars. 
 A large output of zinc ore is now coming from the mines at Neihart, 
 in Cascade County and is being used by the new wet process zinc re- 
 finery in Great Falls. Probably some of the zinc ores of Fergus County 
 are suitable for use in this plant. 
 
 Chalcopyrite, copper iron sulphide. Medium hard mineral and over 
 four times the weight of water. This mineral has a metallic luster and 
 a brassy yellow color, often appears iridrescent. It has a tetragonal 
 crystallization. It has been found on Armells Creek, in the Judith Moun- 
 tains. The original copper deposits in Fergus County were probably sul- 
 phides, but they have been usually oxidized to silicates, oxides and car- 
 bonates, and are developed insufficiently to expose the sulphides that pos- 
 sibly underlie the weathered portion. 
 
 Pyrite, Fool's gold or iron pyrites, iron disulphide. Small pyritic 
 veins in porphyry sometimes carry small amounts of gold which by 
 weathering produce small placers as in Alpine Gulch and the south slopes 
 of the North Moccasins. Hard as a steel knife. Sp. Gr. is about 5. 
 Occurs in cubes whose faces are often striated and sometimes in octrahe- 
 drons and pyritohedrons. Often found in masses and as thin flakes in 
 coal beds. The color is pale brass yellow with a metallic luster. Pyrite 
 is harder than chalcopyrite and paler in color. It is brittle. It is easily 
 altered to oxides of iron. Pyrite originally accompanied the gold deposits 
 of the mountain groups, but in itself is of no economic importance here. 
 
 Sylvanite, the gold silver telluride, calaverite, the telluride of gold oc- 
 cur in the mines at Maiden associated with fluorite. The tellurides are 
 soft, heavy, Sp. Gr. 8-9. They have a metallic luster and silver white 
 color. The crystallization is monoclinic, but few distinct crystals have been 
 found. The structure is bladed or granular. Gold tellurides probably 
 also occur at Gilt Edge and Kendall, but not In crystallized forms. Most 
 of the gold originally existed as tellurides but by the decomposition of 
 the ores much of the gold was set free, although it can seldom be seen in 
 the old. The total production of gold In Fergus County is over $18,000,000. 
 
 The compounds of silver, antimony, arsenic and sulphur occur at 
 Neihart, in th<; Little Belts, but have doI been identified from Fergus 
 County ores. 
 
 A small amount of nickel bus been reported from a copper prospect 
 
 on Armells Creek in the Judiths. It is probably in the form of the BUl 
 phide, millerite. 
 
 Sulphates. 
 
 Small amounts of barium bave been reported from rocks of Fergus 
 County but crystals of harite have not been found 
 
 Gypsum is the hydrated form of calcium sulphate. When calcined 
 or 1 1 • • ; 1 1 . • r | most of its w.-iter Of Crystallization is driven off and it is changed
 
 — 18 — 
 
 to plaster of paris. Gypsum is a soft mineral, usually whitish and it 
 varies from transparent to opaque. It occurs in two ways. First in 
 thick massive beds as at Hanover and Heath, and secondly, as dissem- 
 inated crystals in the black Cretaceous shales of Northern and Eastern 
 Fergus County. Gypsum crystals are usually flat and diamond shaped. 
 The crystals have good cleavage planes and can be split into thin pieces 
 which makes gypsum resemble mica. Gypsum, however, is brittle, while 
 mica is elastic, so it is easy to distinguish between the two. Gypsum 
 crystals are often striated by the solvent action of water. Gypsum dis- 
 solves rather freely in water and causes permanent hardness of water. 
 Gypsum has little effect on plants and can sometimes be added to alkali 
 soils with beneficial effect as it reacts with the alkali and forms harmless 
 salts. Gypsum is mined at Hanover and used for making wall plaster. 
 A small quantity is also used as a retarder in Portland cement. A new 
 gypsum plant will soon be built at Heath. 
 
 Chlorides, Etc. 
 
 Halite, common salt, sodium chloride, occurs in much ground water 
 in Fergus County and in alkaline ponds, and is the chief constituent of 
 "white alkali" deposits where it is often accompanied by magnesium 
 and potassium salts. Alkaline salts, near Square Butte, have assayed 
 28 per cent, potash, but the deposits are mere incrustations on the sur- 
 face of the ground and were formed by the evaporation of water that 
 had dissolved them in the ground. Research has so fair failed to show 
 that any alkali lakes or deposits in Montana contain enough potash to 
 make its extraction profitable. 
 
 Fluorite or Fluor Spar. Calcium fluoride is of medium weight and 
 hardness. Crystallizes in cubes but it is usually found in massive purple 
 aggregates associated with gold. Fluoritic gold ore occurs at Maiden 
 and often assays hundreds of dollars a ton. It was probably formed by the 
 action of hydrofluoric acid on limestone. 
 
 Oxides. 
 
 Quartz, silicon dioxide. Harder than steel and two to six times as 
 heavy as water. It crystallizes in 6 sided prisms that usually terminate in 
 rhombohedrons that resemble pyramids. It occurs in many of the igne- 
 ous rocks, in most metal deposits and as sand and standstone. It is 
 usually grayish white in color. Quartz has glassy luster and conchoidal 
 fracture. Agate, flint and petrified wood are some forms of quartz. Petri- 
 fied wood results from a slow replacement of wood in the earth by quartz 
 carried there by ground water. The wood itself is not changed to stone 
 but is carried away very slowly and the quartz replaces it. 
 
 Cuprite, cuprous oxide occur in small quantities in copper deposits in 
 the Judiths. It is heavy, red in color and earthy in appearance. 
 
 Corundum, aluminum oxide occurs in the form of Sapphire, at Yogo, 
 int the Little Belt Mountains. The sapphires are almost all blue, but 
 sometimes are whitish or yellow. Sapphire is next to the diamond in 
 hardness. It is infusible and insoluble and has a Sp. Gr. of 4 The crystals 
 are flat prisms and rhombohedrons. They occur in a dike of dark igne- 
 ous rock which is the chief source of sapphires in the world. Most of 
 the "sapphires" picked up in the surface gravels of Fergus County are 
 quartz. 
 
 Hematite, iron oxide occurs in Fergus County in the gold mines in
 
 —19— 
 
 the Judiths and Moccasins and in red sandstone bluffs, etc., where it 
 has resulted from the oxidation of pyrite and perhaps other iron minerals. 
 It is massive or earthy with a red streak, and yellow, red or brown in 
 color. Often forms a gossan to copper deposits. A large hematite de- 
 posit occurs on Woodhurst Mountain and on Wolf Creek, in the Little Belts. 
 
 Pyrolusitc, manganese dioxide, is a soft black mineral. It occurs in 
 small quantities on the Sutter claims on Armells Creek, and on Wolf 
 Creek, in the Little Belts, associated with pyrite and galena Manganite, 
 which is a hydrated form of manganese, may also be present. 
 
 Ijimonite. The hydrated oxide of iron occurs in the mines of Maiden, 
 Gilt Edge and Kendall. It is brownish in color with a yellowish streak. 
 Springs emerging from red sandstone and igneous rocks often have dis- 
 solved iron which they deposit as limonite or bog iron ore. Small plants 
 called algae probably assist this process. Many small deposits have re- 
 sulted about Lewistown and elsewhere and a large deposit is found on 
 Armells Creek which might possibly be of economic importance. 
 
 Magnetite, Fe304, occurs in small quantities in some of the igneous 
 rocks of Fergus County but has not been found as an important mineral. 
 
 Carbonates. 
 
 Caleite, calcium carbonate, is one of the most common minerals in 
 Fergus County. Crystallizes most commonly in rhombohedrons, six-sided 
 prisms and six-sided pointed pyramids. The mineral shows perfect rhom- 
 bohedral cleavorage. It is easily scratched with a knife and so differs from 
 quartz, which it somewhat resembles. Its color is white, gray, yellow, 
 black or brown and it may be either opaque or transporent Transparent 
 varieties exhibit the phenomenon of double refraction of light. Caleite 
 occurs as small stalactites and stalagmites in caves, as small veins filling 
 cracks in limestone, sandstone and in round iron bearing concretions found 
 in shales. Limestone is massive caleite and often is formed from coral 
 and other shells and is a very common rock in all the mountains. Traver- 
 tine or calcareous tufa is deposited from hot springs. A great thickness 
 of travertine was deposited after the upheaval .of the mountains of Fergus 
 County but. still thousands of years ago on top of (iilt Edge Hill and 
 McDonald Creek Divide, in the "I'nrk," south of the North Moccasins, 
 and elsewhere. A deposit of marl resulting chiefly from the decay of 
 small snail shells occurs in Crystal Lake, in the Snowy Mountains. 
 
 Dolomite, the carbonate of calcium ami magnesium, composes a very 
 small part of ancient Paleozic limi in the mountains. The carboni- 
 
 ferous limestone contains practically no magnesium, ami hence it is well 
 
 suited to make lime and cement. Dolomite Is a little harder than cil 
 
 cite, but otherwise resembles it. 
 
 Smlthsonite, tin- carbonate of Bine, occurs as Incrustations on spa! 
 
 erlte and as honeycombed masses known M "dry bono ore." It is of 
 
 small Importance 
 
 Btrontianite, the carbonate of strontium, occurs apparently as a re- 
 placement of lino- tori" in tin- foothills of the Big Snowy Mountains, near 
 
 Cottonwood «'reek. The mineral occurred in sharp radiating crj Lais, it 
 
 is a little harder than caleite and whitih gray in color It is thOUghl 
 
 the depo ii Is too : mall to be "i t ommerclal Important • 
 
 ( erudite, lead carbonate, OCCUrs as a decomposition product of galena 
 
 in the Judiths and elsewhere [I Li of small Importance In Pergu 
 County. Many hundred tons of lead carbonate ore carrying silver ealu<
 
 —20— 
 
 have been produced from the Woodhurst mine, Running Wolf Creek, in 
 the Little Belts. A little anglesite, the lead sulphate, may be mixed with 
 the carbonate. 
 
 Malachite and Azurite, green and blue, respectively, hydrated carbon- 
 ates of copper ore are important surface indications of copper deposits in 
 the Judith and Belt Mountains. Both have been shipped as ore from 
 Armell's Creek in the Judiths and Wolf Creek in the Belts. Malachite 
 is green and occurs in fibrous radiating structures. Azurite is blue, and 
 often occurs in radiating spherical groups. Both are a little harder than 
 calcite. 
 
 Silicates. 
 
 Feldspars — Orthoclase, the potassium aluminum silicate is a very com- 
 mon constituent of the igneous rock or "porphyry" of Fergus County. It 
 forms perfect monoclinic crystals which are roughly rectangular and are 
 often twinned. Large crystals sometimes over an inch across occur in 
 the Judiths, Belts and Moccasins, especially near the Spotted Horse mine, 
 near Maiden. The crystals are pale yellow or brown. Hardness about 
 the same as steel and softer than quartz. Plagioclase, the sodium cal- 
 cium aluminum silicate, occurs in the igneous dikes, sills and laccoliths 
 of Fergus County, but seldom in well formed crystals. High potash feld- 
 spars are common, as at Square Butte, and may serve as a source for 
 potash if methods are perfected to extract it from igneous rock. 
 
 Pyroxene and Amphibole, dark colored calcium magnesium, iron sili- 
 cates occur in the basic rocks of Fergus County but seldom form prom- 
 inent crystals. Hornblende is the most common amphibole, and occurs in 
 dark green and black, sharp pointed and blade-like crystals. Pyroxene 
 js often common in the igneous dikes and intrusive masses in the Little 
 Belts, but is not the dominant mineral. 
 
 Garnet has about the hardness of quartz. It occurs near the contact 
 of limestone and intrusive porphyry in 12-sided crystals (dodecahedrons), 
 as at Ruby Gulch, in the Judiths, and near Yogo, in the Little Belts. The 
 common garnet found in Fergus County is a calcium aluminum iron sili- 
 cate of no commercial importance. 
 
 Topaz, a complex aluminum silicate containing fluorine, has been 
 found in the West Kendall mine, in the North Moccasin Mountains. It 
 occurs in a mineral deposit of galena and gold near the contact of lime- 
 stone and granite porphyry. It probably results from pheumatolytic ac- 
 tion. The topaz occurs in clear, translucent masses, seldom in crystals. 
 It is next in hardness to sapphire and has been cut into very handsome 
 gems. In color the topaz is whitish to yellowish brown and may be 
 either opaque or transparent. Some of the so-called topaz is probably 
 quartz. 
 
 Mica — Both the white mica, muscovite, and the black mica, biotite, 
 occur in the porphyry intrusions of Fergus County in the various moun- 
 tains as fine specks and slender foils, so as to produce a speckled ap- 
 pearance, but they do not occur in commercial deposits. Mica is a very 
 complex silicate, soft enough to be scratched with the finger nail. It 
 resembles flakes of gypsum, but if bent it is elastic, while gypsum is 
 brittle. It splits easily into thin sheet. 
 
 Kaolinite, or china clay, a hydrous aluminum silicate which results
 
 -21- 
 
 from the weathering of felspars, occurs in the soil of Fergus County, but 
 not in pure deposits. 
 
 Small amounts of apatite, the calcium phosphate containing chlorine 
 and fluorine, exists in the igneous rocks of Fergus County mountains, 
 but no deposits of phorphate rock- have yet been found. 
 
 Chrysocolla, a hydrated silicate of copper, occurs on Armells Creek, 
 in the Judiths, and on Wolf Creek, in the Little Belts, associated with 
 azurite and malachite. It occurs in small light blue masses and is the 
 result of the ozidation of copper sulphides. It has been shipped to smelt- 
 ers as a copper ore to a small extent. 
 
 Yanadinite, a complex vanadium salt of lead, has been found in well 
 formed crystals in the old Sir Walter Scott mine, in the Little Belts. 
 
 Olivine, a magnesium iron silicate, occurs in many ingeous rocks in 
 the Little Belts in small irregular masses. 
 
 Chlorite is reported by Pirsson to be a constituent of some igneous 
 rocks in Fergus County. 
 
 ■ — 
 
 x 
 
 > 
 x 
 - 
 
 X 
 
 - 
 
 <•.
 
 —22— 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Geology »>f Fergus County. 
 
 . The rocks exposed in Fergus County range in age from early Paleozoic 
 to recent in an almost complete geologic section and aggregate nearly 
 two miles in thickness. 
 
 Archean gneises and schists are found near Neihart, in the Little 
 Belt Mountains and prohably underlie all of Fergus County as the base- 
 ment complex on which the later sedimentary rocks were deposited, but 
 none are exposed at the surface. In the Belt Mountains is a great series 
 of shale, limestone and quartzite about 4,600 feet thick, called the Belt 
 Series that is of Pre-Cambrian age. None of these rocks are exposed in 
 the Judith or Moccasin Mountains, but they are well exposed on the South 
 Fork of Judith River, in the Little Belt Mountains, where about 1,000 
 feet of gray shales have been deeply trenched by the streams. There is 
 about 200 feet of gray, green and black shale exposed in the canyon of 
 Swimming Woman Creek, on the south side of the Big Snowies, in Mus- 
 selshell County which would represent the top of the Belt Series. In 
 both cases they are overlain by the hard basal sandstone of the Cam- 
 brian which is a resistant rock, and forms rock terraces or plateaus. 
 
 The base of the Cambrian is named the Flathead and consists of a 
 redish sandstone, usually a conglpmerate containing rounded pebbles 
 of quartz. Its base is a true quartzite. The Flathead is 100 feet thick. 
 It is exposed in South Fork, of the Judith River, in the Little Belts; in 
 Swimming Woman Canyon, in the Big Snowies, and at Black Butte. The 
 quartzite is overlain by 150 feet of dark gray or green micaceous shale, 
 with some concretions containing fossils, identified by Wolcott as Middle 
 Cambrian. The shale is followed by a limestone conglomerate. Next there 
 is about 40 feet of yellow sandy shale capped by a thin bedded, flaggy lime- 
 stone, often containing chert pebbles. It weathers as cliffs and commonly 
 shows well developed joints, so that it breaks into blocks and prisms. 
 The Cambrain is completely exposed around Half Moon Pass, in the 
 Snowies, where it forms great cliffs. The Cambrian occurs in canyons of 
 the Judith River, in the Little Belts; at Black Butte, in Alpine Gulch, 
 Ruby Gulch, and Limekiln Gulch, in the Judiths; in the northeast part 
 of the South Moccasins, and a few small outcrops in the North Moccasins. 
 The Cambian shales and fissile limestones are common zones of intrusion 
 for igneous rocks in the form of laccoliths, sills and dikes. The laccoliths 
 of the Judiths and Moccasins intrude the Cambrian and often the Cam- 
 bian sales and limestone are tipped and broken into great blocks by the 
 intrusions, as near the Spotted. Horse mine at Maiden and on the north 
 side of the South Moccasins. 
 
 Between the Cambrian and Carboniferous formations is found about 
 200-300 feet of limestone that differs in appearance from the conglomer- 
 ate limestones of the Cambian or the massive thick bedded Madison 
 limestone. The exact age of the formation is a matter of dispute, but 
 it is considered the equivalent of the Siluro Devonian formations of the 
 Three Forks region, which comprize the Jefferson limestone and Three 
 Forks shale. The basal limestone generally rises abruptly from the 
 Cambrian shales as a cliff. The limestone is dark brown to steel gray or 
 bluish black and occurs in beds a few feet thick that are well jointed. 
 The rock frequently has a decided granular appearance due to cream 
 colored markings. It sometimes has a fetid odor when struck with a
 
 — 23 — 
 
 hammer, due to the presence of organic matter. Corals and crinoids 
 are found in the limestone. Some beds of sandy shale occur with the 
 limestone. The Siluro Devonian is well developed in the Little Belts, 
 especially in the valley of Lost Fork of the Judith, where it forms the 
 greater part of the bedrock. It forms the tops of the ridges about Alpine, 
 New Year, Ruby, and Limekiln Gulches, in the Judiths. It is a com- 
 mon rock in the Big Snowy Mountains and outcrops in the Moccasins. 
 
 The most characteristic formation in the mountains of Fergus County 
 is the Madison limestone of Lower Carboniferous or Mississippean age. 
 This consists of thick bedded limestone towards the base and very mas- 
 sive limestone at the top. The formation varies from 7 50-900 feet in 
 thickness. The limestone is often stained brown or yellow by iron oxide 
 and gold and other metals occur as replacements of the lime along its 
 contact with intrusive sheets of porphyry in the Judiths, Belts and 
 North Moccasins. Caves, arches, sinkholes and pinnacles are common 
 phenomena of the weathering of the limestone. The rocks resist erosion 
 and often stand as nearly vertical cliffs several hundred feet high. Deep, 
 narrow "box canyons" are a characteris of its erosion where its strata 
 dips moderately, and forms the gateway to the mountain in most of the 
 canyons. The Madison is much more resistant to erosion than any over- 
 lying rocks and therefore usually serves to sharply separate the moun- 
 tains from the plains, and foothills about them, and therefore is called 
 the "mountain limestone." The limestone is light colored and in the 
 upper portion dense, rarely crystalline, and contains some small masses 
 of chert. It is pure and is used for the manufacture of lime and port- 
 land cement. The Madison outcrops over the greater part of the Big 
 Snowy and eastern extension of the Little Belt Mountains, and forms a 
 wide belt around the Moccasins and most of the Judith Mountains. 
 
 Above the Maadison limestone the Quadrant formation occurs which 
 is commonly considered of Upper Carboniferous or Pennsylvania in age 
 but the writer considers the top of the formation, at least, to be the 
 equivalent of the Permo-Carboniferous or "Red Beds" of the southern 
 Great Plains. The Quadrant is a very variable formation. It is 1,400 
 feet thick near Utica, over 1,000 feet at Alaska Bench, 700 feet of it were 
 penetrated in an oil well near Piper, while only a few feet of shale rep- 
 resents it in the Judiths and Moccasins, while it is lacking entirely In 
 the Little Rockies, north of the Missouri. No unconformity between the 
 Madison and Quadrant has been found, but the character of the rocks 
 changes entirely. The base ol tho formation near Judith Gap con- 
 sists of red shale, but at Alaska Bench and In the Piper well, thick beds 
 of hard sandstone was encountered in this horizon, Above this there is 
 about 100 feet of coppery green shale, which perhaps is the most char- 
 acteristic member ol the lower half or the formation. Thin bedt of bi- 
 tuminous limestone occur both above and below the green shale and are 
 especially well iievelopd <>n Ala ks Bench, where they are aaaoclatd with 
 
 over 300 feet of black shale. \ hard siliceous limcst one that weat li 
 
 red on exposed edges and contains many fossils forms the top of Iho for- 
 mation around the Big Snowy Mountains This lino- tone Is over I f.n feet 
 thick at Alaska Bench and only IS feet thick a few mil. north at Piper, 
 and is absent a few miles farther north in the Judiths. From B study of 
 
 fossils collected hv ('albert, Glrty states (Ball 890 D B «: s. pp B-19) 
 he is unable to correlate the formation exactly as some foHsilH are char- 
 acteristic of the Pennsylvanlan and others su late Mlastsslppean, The
 
 — 24 — 
 
 hard limestone beds of the Quadrant are resistant to erosion and form 
 the top of Alaska Bench and other high benches east and north of the 
 Snowies, which all have a steep inner slope towards the mountains and 
 a gentle outward slope with the dip of the hard rock away from the 
 mountains. The underlying shales of the Quadrant are easily eroded and 
 form broad passes and valleys between the Madison limestone of the 
 mountains and the foothills and benches around them. 
 
 The Triassic beds of Wyoming appear to be absent in Fergus County, 
 as the Jurassic system of rocks lies upon the Quadrant. The Jurassic 
 consists of the Ellis formation and the Morrison formation. The Ellis 
 beds consist of sandstones, thin limestones and dark colored shale. The 
 sandstone is conglomeratic and usually contains a great number of oyster 
 shells, and weathers to a peculiar tan color. The Ellis varies greatly in 
 the character of its strata in different places. Limestone is sometimes 
 almost absent, but at Button Butte it is thick and hard. Thick beds 
 of pure gypsum occur in the Ellis around the Snowies and at Hanover. 
 The top of the formation is sandstone, which serves to separate it from 
 the overlying Morrison formation whose basal member is shale or shaly 
 limestone. The Ellis is about 400 feet thick, but there is considerable 
 variation in different localities. The Morrison averages about 125 feet 
 thick, and consists mostly of vari-colored shales. The base consists of 
 red and pink shale which gies way to greenish shale and finally to buff 
 sandstone at the top. The layers of siliceous limestone that often con- 
 tains calcite crystals are interbedded with the shale. The peculiar vari- 
 colored shales are the most interesting lithological characteristic of the Mor- 
 rison. The Morrison is here classed as Jurassic but may represent the 
 base of the Cretaceous. 
 
 The strata of the Cretaceous system cover most of the surface of 
 Fergus County outside of the mountains and foothill regions. The Lower 
 Cretaceous is represented by the Kootenai formation. The Kootenai varies 
 from about 450-550 feet in thickness, and is made up of alternating 
 layers of shale and sandstone and in some places beds of good coal occur. 
 T he shale is of a clayey character and is predominantly reddish. The 
 sandstone members vary greatly in thickness within short distances. They 
 usually show cross bedding and are conglomeratic and are stained red 
 and yellow by iron. The best coal beds sometimes are present higher 
 up in the formation, but they are usually thin and of poor grade. Springs 
 commonly occur at the outcrop of sandstone and coal beds. A film of 
 iron hydroxide often forms over the spring water, which has an iridescence 
 similiar to oil and such springs are sometimes mistaken for oil seepages. 
 Many of the springs are depositing bog iron. 
 
 The Colorado shale overlies the Kootenai with apparent conformity, 
 but farther east, in the Great Plains, several hundred feet of strata oc- 
 curs between similar formations. In Fergus County the formation is 
 from 1,500 feet to 2,300 feet thick. Above the Kootenai is about 100 
 feet of alternating fine-grained sandstone and thin layers of shale, both 
 of which weather brown. The sandstone is often in the form of flat lenses, 
 The remainder of the formation is shale that varies in color from dark 
 gray and drab to black. The shale contains occasional thin sandstone 
 members. The Colorado outcrops very extensively in Fergus County and 
 is the bedrock through most of the Judith Basin. It covers the county
 
 — 25 — 
 
 between Gilt Edge and Grass Range to Winnett north to about the line of 
 Box Elder Creek and Black Butte. 
 
 The Colorado is overlain in Central Montana by the Montana group. 
 The Montana consists of the Eagle sandstone at the base, followed by 
 Clagget formation, the Judith River formation and the Bearpaw shale 
 in order. The Eagle is 200-300 feet thick and consists of 120 feet of heavy 
 bedded sandstone at its base which varies from white to buff and brown 
 in color. Above this are thin beds of coal and carbonaceous shale. The 
 Claggert shale is of marine origin and is usually black in color. It re- 
 sembles the Bearpaw shale, except toward the top, which contains thin 
 beds of sandstone. The Clagget is about 700 feet in thickness and is 
 2 50-500 feet thick. The Judith River consists of sandstone usually cross 
 bedded that weathers to a peculiar yellowish color, and alternates with 
 clay and shale. In Northern Fergus County there is a persistent bed of 
 coal and carbonaceous shale which usually changes to fairly good coal. 
 This is usually overlain by several inches of oyster shells (Ostrea sub- 
 trigonalis) which form a clearly defined bed. The formation contains 
 bones of vertebrates and much petrified wood. The Bearpaw shale is 
 about 1,100 feet thick and is predominately black in color. It frequent- 
 ly weathers to form extensive gumbo flats. The shale contains many 
 round and oblong concretions which are filled with fossils, especially 
 ammonites and belemites. The Montana formations outcrop over almost 
 all the county north and east of the areas covered by the Colorado shale. 
 This includes the country east of Winnett to the Musselshell and north 
 of Black Butte, Hilger and Deerfield to the Missouri. 
 
 In Northeastern Fergus the Lance formation of Tertiary age occurs 
 over the Bearpaw shale. It consists of alternating beds of gray sand- 
 stone and clay shale with thin beds of coal near the top. It is a more 
 resistant formation than the Bearpaw and caps Dovetail Butte and others 
 along Crooked Creek. It covers considerable areas around Valentine and 
 :n the triangle between Box Elder Creek, the Musselshell and the 
 Missouri. 
 
 The Quaternary system is represented by valley deposits of alluvium 
 along the chief rivers, by spring deposits of travertine near the laccollthic 
 mountains and by terrace gravels covering most of the great benches in 
 the Judith Basin. The alluvium occurs mainly in the valley of the Mis- 
 iiiri and Musselshell. The travertine or calcareous tufa caps Gilt Edge 
 Hill and covers extensive areas on McDonald Creek Divide south to the 
 road from Heath to Forest drove. It caps Castle Butte, and two buttes 
 at the northeast, and southeast corner of the Smith Moccasins, and covers 
 .several sections in tin- plateau called the "Park" at the southern edge of 
 the North Moccasins. The travertine consists of limestone deposited 
 from great extinct springs which derived it from the neighboring moun- 
 tains and Is porous and often Siliceous. It is deposit. -d on the truncated 
 
 edges of folded Jurassic and Cretac is formations Bhowing that the 
 
 country was l>a ■ • leveled before the deposit began. The grave] » 
 brought from the BUITOUndlng mountain h} mm,, -nl meandering streams 
 
 and probably also by floods. Th< Ba In m evidently Dearly at bi 
 level and the gravel was deposited on gentle slopes from the mountain! 
 to the Judith River. Later the snewed their downcutting and 
 
 carved valleys far beiow the old lop. and made the bencb ol the Bi tn 
 of today. Three and in some places four or Ave gravel covered ben. 1 
 or terraces along the . hn-f tream can be ld< ntlfled, eacb of which indicat
 
 —26— 
 
 that the stream tlowed at that level for a long time. The gravel consists 
 of water worn limestone, quarzite and porphyry from the mountains and 
 is from a few feet to over 50 feet thick. The gravel surface is level but 
 w:is deposited on irregularly eroded bedrock. The gravel resists erosion 
 better than the shale, which it usually covers, and is the cap rock for 
 most of the buttes and benches in the Basin. Locally lime deposited by 
 ground water has cemented the gravel together and formed a gravel 
 cement. A few granite, gneiss and schist boulders are thinly scattered 
 over Northeastern Fergus County and were brought from Canada by the 
 continental glacier that came from west of Hudson Bay some 50,000 
 years ago. The glacial deposits are unimportant and weathering and 
 erosion have removed all but the hardest rocks. 
 
 GEOLOGICAL. HISTORY. 
 
 The sedimentary Belt Series was deposited unconformably on highly 
 metamorphic gneisses and schists in Central Montana. The thick Pre- 
 Cambrian Belt Series of marine shales and limestone indicates that an 
 ocean covered Central Montana for a very long time. There seems, how- 
 ever, to have been an island near Neihart. The Pre-Cambrian closed with 
 a great uplift and this area was dry land for an unknown length of time. 
 The uplift was not high enough to result in much erosion, however, as 
 there is no angular unconformity betwen the Belt Series and the Cambrian, 
 the basal conglomerate of the Cambrian indicates a sinking coast and an 
 ocean advancing over the land. The shale and limestone overlying the 
 conglomerate indicates a steadily deepening arm of the ocean. Then for 
 millions of years during Silurian, Devonian and Lower Carboniferous times 
 Central Montana continued to be covered by an ocean. There was evi- 
 dently no land areas nearby as almost pure limestone was deposited over 
 1,000 feet thick. Fossils indicate that the climate was warm, even almost 
 tropical at this time. Many fossil coral reefs occur in the mountains and 
 corals die when the temperature drops below 65 degrees F. The rocks 
 at the base of the Quadrant indicate a shallowing of the ocean and much 
 of the formation is characteristic of brackish water and shore lines. The 
 j-^reat variation in thickness of the Quadrant indicates variable distances 
 from land masses. An uplift closed the Quadrant, as the Ellis in 
 Cascade County, lies on the Madison, but no erosion sems to have oc- 
 curred in Fergus County, so that the land was not much above sea level. 
 The Ellis beds of Jurassic age were deposited in the ocean, but its sand- 
 stones are a sign that the water was stagnant. The fossils in the Morrison 
 are fresh water forms and its sandstones are cross bedded, both proofs 
 that the Ellis closed with a withdrawal of the sea and that the Morrison 
 is a terrestial deposit. The climate was probably arid in part of early 
 Jurassic times during which thick gypsum beds were deposited in lagoons. 
 The gypsum is accompanied by marine limestone showing that a minor 
 inundation of the ocean occurred. The land soon rose and the marine 
 part of the Jurassic was succeeded without apparent unconformity by 
 cross bedded terrestial sandstones and shales of the Morrison containing 
 fresh water fossils. 
 
 Central Montana continued to be land through lower Cretaceous time 
 as the cross bedded sandstones and coal beds of the Kootenai indicate 
 river and wind deposits and swamp conditions favorable for the growth of 
 coal making plants. The ocean, however, again returned and covered 
 America from the Gulf of Mexico across Montana to the Arctic Oceon.
 
 —27- 
 
 The great thickness of the Colorado shale shows that the ocean covered 
 Fergus County for a long time. The Eagle sandstone indicates a shal- 
 lowing of the water and a return to the swamps and shore line conditions. 
 The Claggett shale was deposited in a renewed flooding of the land by the 
 ocean which, however, later withdrew out of Central Montana for thou- 
 sands of years, during which the coal beds, cross bedded sandstones and 
 terrestial clay of the Judith River's formation were deposited. The 
 ocean continued to cover Montana east of the Musselshell as the Judith 
 River beds thin out and disappear in that direction and the Claggett 
 and Bearpaw are not separated but are one formation. The ocean covered 
 Fergus County for the last time when the Bearpaw shale was depositd. 
 The Lance is a formation deposited on the land or in shallow fresh 
 water. Cretaceous time was closed by probably the greatest uplift that 
 has occurred in this part of Montana and in the early tertary intrusions 
 of igneous rock domed up the Judith and Moccasins and compressions of 
 the earth's crust produced the great anticlines of the Snowies, Belts and 
 South Eastern Fergus County. Ash beds occur in the upper Cretaceous 
 rocks near the Highwoods, showing that the volcanoes there were then 
 active. The dikes that radiate out from the Highwoods and also occur 
 along the Missouri were intruded at this time. Since the close of the 
 Cretaceous erosion has removed thousands of feet of sedimentary rocks, 
 the travertine and bench gravels were deposited during this time. Ero- 
 sion processes have been periodically renewed in Fergus County and there 
 were long intervals when more deposition than removal of sediments oc- 
 curred. Some 50,000 years ago a glacier covered Northeastern Fergus 
 County but left no important deposits. The great gorge of the Missouri 
 and the lesser valleys of its tributaries inside the last broad terrace have 
 been cut since then. 
 
 I 
 
 < iiMltlM: VI WORK.
 
 —28— 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Metal Deposits of Fefgus County and Their Development. 
 
 Over $18,000,000 worth of metals, mostly gold, has been produced from 
 the mines of Fergus County. Several descriptions of the mining districts 
 have been published and are listed in the bibliography. They were of 
 assistance in the preparation of this chapter, but all mines have been 
 visited and new data collected. So far as possible complex and theoretical 
 discussions are avoided in the discussion of the metallic resources in 
 this chapter. Those wishing further descriptions of the mines and min- 
 eral deposits are referred to the reports listed in the bibliography. 
 
 Gold was first discovered in Fergus County in 1870, at Yogo, in the 
 Little Belt Mountains. A rush ensued, and soon 1,200 miners were busy 
 working the placers and quartz lodes. The claims proved disappointing 
 and the town was abandoned. 
 
 Placer gold was found in Alpine Gulch, in the Judith Mountains, in 
 1880, and the Spotted Horse and Maginnis mines were located the same 
 year. Prospecting or mining has been active in all the mountain groups 
 of the county since the discoveries at Maiden. 
 
 Placer gold occurs and is apparently mostly derived from the weather- 
 ing and erosion of small pyritic gold bearing veins in porphyry. Gold 
 has been produced from placers in the Judith Mountains, chiefly in Alpine 
 Gulch and Armells Creek, from the Little Belts in Yogo Gulch, and from 
 the North Moccasins in the gulches of the south half of the mountains. 
 Deserted cabins, old flumes and piles of worked over grovels and rock 
 remain in several of the gulches to mark the activity of the placer miner, 
 but it is improbable that the total production ever amounted to over 
 $100,000. Only a few ounces have been reported in the last ten years. 
 
 Quartz deposits of metals in Fergus County are of two types. The 
 first type consists of small stringers and veinlets in intrusive porphyry, 
 especially near phonolite dikes. No important mine has ever been de- 
 veloped from such deposits although high assays of gold, silver, lead and 
 copper are sometimes obtained, and some ore has been marketed. At 
 times the phonolite dike itself contains enough mineral to be called a 
 "vein of ore." The small pyritic veins in porphyry have supplied most 
 of the placer gold. Such veinlets are found in the North Moccasins, 
 near Yogo in the Belts, and in the Judiths in Alpine Gulch, Grassy Peak, 
 Red Mountain and the Cone Butte mining sections. Two small stamp 
 mills were built many years ago in the North Moccasins in an attempt 
 to work the pyritic veins, but the gold content was too small to permit 
 its profitable recovery. Similar failures have resulted in the Judiths. 
 However, it is not improbable that rich pockets of shipping ore may 
 be found in some of the veins in the porphyry, although from the experience 
 of the past it is not probable that any large ore bodies will be discovered 
 under such circumtsances. 
 
 The second type of metal deposit are ore bodies formed by the re- 
 placement of limestone near its contact with intrusive laccoliths and 
 sheets of igneous rock. These deposits have furnished nearly all of the 
 metal production of the county. The mines developed from this type of 
 metal deposit are valuable for (1) gold, (2) lead-silver and zinc, (3) 
 copper. They will be described under the head of the mountain group or 
 mining district in which they occur. 
 
 The replacement deposits in the mountains were deposited at depths
 
 —29— 
 
 of several thousand feet, or at what Lindgren calls intermediate depth. 
 It is probable that some or bodies are not exposed at the surface at all, 
 as such exposure results from the accidental processes of erosion. The 
 manner of occurrence, the kind of minerals, and the banded structure of 
 many of the deposits indicate a deposition from hot escending solutions. 
 Nearly all the metals seem to have been originally deposited as sulphides, 
 but since their formation they have been oxidized to depths of several 
 hundred feet. The most valuable ore bodies are replacement deposits of 
 gold in limestone near its contact with intrusive igneous rock. If the ore 
 is near a sheet of porphyry it is always underneath it and the porphyry 
 serves as the hanging wall. The ore deposits usually occur in well denned 
 shoots, although some of them are irregular and assays are necessary to 
 tell ore from unmineralized lime rock. The richest ore at Maiden is ac- 
 companied by purple fluorite. The fluorite resulted from the action of hy- 
 drofluoric acid on limestone. This acid was probably brought by solutions 
 trom the intrusive molten magmas and may have aided in dissolving the 
 gold. The gold-bearing limestone is usually siliceous, often jasperoid and 
 is more crystalline than before mineralization. 
 
 It is believed that the mineral bearing solutions were derived from in- 
 rrusive igneous rock and were therefore hot. They were ascending as 
 they occur below porphyry sheets. The contraction of the molten magma 
 on cooling would leave fissures through which solutions might pass. The 
 chief ore bodies occur in thin bedded and easily fractured limestone to- 
 wards the top of the Carboniferous. The thick bedded Madison limestone 
 below and the sandstones and shales of the Jurassic above have been little 
 affected. Solutions easily entered along the bedding planes, and the fis- 
 sures resulting from the uplift of the mountains and intrusions of igneous 
 rock. Solution of limestone was very extensive as great deposits of traver- 
 tine are found near the Judith and Moccasin Mountains. The precipitation 
 of minerals in the brecciated limestone would be caused by: greater solu- 
 bility of limestone, relief of pressure, lower temperature, and chemical 
 reactions, due especially to the presence of carbonaceous matter thai would 
 act as a reducing agent. The effect of carbon is best shown in the Barnes- 
 King mine, where the best ore contains so much carbonaceous matter thai 
 roasting is necessary before cyanldation. This ore assays $20-$30 per 
 ton while the average from the mine is about $8. The gold probably was 
 originally deposited as a telluride, along with quartz, calclte and sulphides. 
 ♦ specially pyrlte. Surface waters and the air have oxidized the pyrlte 
 which results in staining much of the ore a red, yellow or brown color, 
 and practically all ore mined is softened and decomposed by the agenti o1 
 weathering. Free gold is rarely seen 
 
 MINE DESCRIPTIONS. 
 Judith Mountain*. 
 
 Th.' mOBl important mine are those rear Maiden. The Spotted Horse 
 
 was located in 1880 and wa operated fairly contlnuou ly by different pai 
 until 1902, when it wa closed II was reopened In 1912 and ran until 
 hut. not operating In 1918 During this time the mine wa operated 
 i,v k h. Coolidge under lea e The Spotted Horse has produced ahoul 
 $6,500,000 in gold. The ore during its first period of operation was all 
 pped to the smelter and averaged aboul ?i" ( > per ton. Much of the 
 
 ore was high grade, Bome being worth $80,1 per ton The besl ore 1b 
 
 colored purple by fluorite The mine li developed to a deptb oi I
 
 —30 — 
 
 with appropriate levels. It is equipped with a 75-ton cyanide mill and 
 most of the gold produced in recent years has been recovered from low 
 grade ore. The ore occurs in very perfect shoots underneath inclined 
 sheets of porphyry. The mine is not worked out and the geological con- 
 ditions are such that further ore bodies may be expected to occur. Four 
 chimneys of ore have so far been worked. 
 
 The Maginnis mine was located in 1880 and worked at intervals until 
 1S99. It was then closed until 1909, and since then has been operated 
 periodically by lessees. The Maginnis has produced about $2,000,000 in 
 gold. The mine is developed to a depth of 426 feet with over a mile of 
 drifts. It is equipped with a 10-stamp mill, a concentrator for shipping 
 ore, and a cyanide plant for low grade. Much quartz and purple fluorite 
 ore averaging $100 per ton has been shipped to the smelters. The ore 
 bodies occur beneath sheets of porphyry and is thought they should con- 
 tinue to a greater depth than has yet been mined. 
 
 The Cumberland mine adjoins the Spotted Horse. It has produced 
 about $500,000 in gold. It is developed with a 1,000-foot adit and is 
 equipped with a 150-ton cyanide mille. The ore occurs at the contact of 
 limestone and porphyry. Two hundred and seventy thousand dollars came 
 from workings above the adit which exhausted the ore body. The mine 
 was leased and early in 1916 a big ore body was opened and in 1916 and 
 1917 a large tonnage of high grade ore was shipped to the smelter and 
 some lower grade sent through the mill. The mine was closed in 1918 as 
 a result of the lessees joining the army. 
 
 The War Eagle, near Maiden, is developed by a short tunnel. Since 
 1910 several shipments of zinc ore carrying values in gold, silver and lead 
 have been made. 
 
 . A large amount of prospecting has been done near Maiden, and several 
 of the prospects may turn into mines with further development work. 
 Alpine Gulch and Grassy Peak contain prospects where high assay values 
 have been secured. Some of these claims are lead, silver, others copper, 
 or gold. The Florence has been closed for yars, but produced gold for a 
 time from a small but very rich ore body from which 17 tons yielded $9,000. 
 
 The Cone Butte mining district includes the Judiths, north of Maiden. 
 No large mines have been developed within this section, but much pros- 
 pecting has been done and there are many likely prospects. Those on 
 Red Mountain and vicinity are of the vein type in porphyry. Those farther 
 down the slopes of the mountains are near the contact of lime and 
 porphyry. 
 
 Considerable mineralization occurs on West Armells Creek. Several 
 pockets of lead ore have been found as replacement deposits in limestone. 
 The Cave mine produced several thousand dollars worth of lead-silver ore 
 from such a pocket. Ore from these pockets has sometimes been concen- 
 tratd in hand jigs before sacking for shipment. On the floor of Armells 
 Creek Canyon is a surficial bed of limonite (bog iron ore) deposited from 
 iron springs. Many thousand tons are exposed but it is unlikely that it 
 will have any value in the near future. The Sutter Copper Prospect is on 
 the ridge between two forks of Armells Creek. The property is developed 
 with a short tunnel and a winze 30 feet dep. The property appears to be 
 of the contact metamorphic type. Limestone overlies porphyry at this 
 place and the porphyry is covered with a pronounced iron cap which 
 shows green and blue copper stains in some places and considerable evi- 
 dence of leaching. Further development would seem to be justified, as
 
 — 31 — 
 
 from the evidence visible it seems probable that secondary enrichment may 
 have occurred, in which case a profitable ore body would result. Two car- 
 loads of ore running 10-15 per cent copper was shipped in 1917. The ore 
 was oxidized and consisted chiefly of azurite, malachite and crysocolla. 
 Litigation has delayed development. There are other copper claims on 
 Armells creek from which some ore has been found. They all lack de- 
 velopment. On the north side of Armells Creek, not far above the stream, 
 heavy sulphides, said to carry gold, have been found in a short tunnel near 
 a lime contact. Traces of manganese occur on Armells Creek. 
 
 The Copper King group on Red Mountain is developed with a short 
 tunnel and some 2-3 per cent copper ore has been found. The Cone Butte 
 mine is developed with a shallow shaft, and some very good assays have 
 been obtained. It has not been worked for several years. On Elk Moun- 
 tain there are sevral small lead-silver properties from which small amounts 
 of ore are sometimes shipped. There are a large number of prospect 
 cuts, tunnels and shallow shafts in the Cone Butte district. Assays have 
 been secured varying from a few cents to thousands of dollars a ton. In 
 general, consistent work has not been done by miners and prospectors 
 in the Cone Butte section and the presence or absence of profitable ore 
 bodies remains to be demonstrated. 
 
 Claims were located at Gilt Edge in 1884 and 1885 by William Wilson 
 ("Limestone Bill"), Anderson and Munson. The ore is low grade and 
 is of the limestone replacement type. Limestone that is gold-bearing is 
 siliceous and generally stained with iron oxides. It contains no fluorite. 
 Ore bodies usually occur near the contact of porphyry and lime, and the 
 best ore was found in the soft thin-bedded upper Carboniferous lime- 
 stones under sheets of porphyry. The porphyry is sometimes altered and 
 itself forms ore. The Gilt Edge mill was among the first in the United 
 States to apply the cyanide process for the extraction of gold. The process 
 was not well understood at first and considerable gold was lost in the 
 tailing. For several years following 1898 a large production annually 
 came from the Gold Ref and Great Northern properties. During this time 
 an efficient 300-ton cyanide mill extracted about $1,250,000 in gold from 
 the ore. The mill was dismantled several years ago, but the last two 
 years a small cyanide plant was erected which has successfully retreated 
 the tailings from the old mill. 
 
 The Whiskey Gulch mine has a KtO-ton cyanide mill and produced 
 $165,700 in 1903-1904 from $5.50 gold ore. It has since been closed, 
 but considerable low Krade ore is said to be in sight. The .Mammoth Is 
 equipped with a 100-ton cyanide plant, but has produced little gold. 
 Prospecting has been done on the Mammoth and other nearby claims re- 
 cently. Some lead ore has been mined mar CiM Kdge, but part of it 
 contained too much zinc to make shipments profitable, as lead smelters 
 penalize ore containing zinc since it interferes with their methods of 
 smelting. 
 
 Claims were located in New Year Gulch in the early Mi's, but although 
 much money has been spent on development work the production has been 
 small. The values are in gold and the ore occurs as replacements of lline- 
 
 ne underneath sheel ol porphyry The x.-w fear has a cyanide plant 
 
 of 160 tons capacity and is connected with the mine workings by an aerial 
 
 tramway. Little ore was found In the New fear The Gold lores prop 
 
 erty adjoins the New Year. In 1916-1916 an g00-fOOt adit and drifi 
 were driven on this property without disclosing any milling <>re Kinlau
 
 — 32 — 
 
 and Allister have claims close by and have developed some ore suitable 
 ior cyanidation. 
 
 North Moccasin Mountains. 
 
 Claims were located in the North Moccasin Mountains in the early 
 eighties. Two small stamp mills were constructed to work small pyritic 
 veins in porphyry but the gold content was too small for profit and little 
 remains of the mills today. Small placers were worked at intervals for 
 many years, but their total gold production is not large. The real develop- 
 ment of the Kendall mines commenced in 1898. 
 
 The Kendall mine was the first to be developed in the Moccasins. 
 Harry Kendall purchased the original claim from Charles Allen for $6 50 
 and the adjoining Klondike for $1,500 from Ira Knapp and A. B. Hopkins. 
 He built a small mill to treat the ore and in November, 1900, sold the 
 mine to the Finch interest of Spokane for $400,000, receiving $360,000 
 cash and 1-10 interest in the mine. A 500-ton mill was built and a shaft 
 was sunk to a depth of 620 feet and a power plant constructed on Warm 
 Spring Creek. From May 1, 1901-1912 the Kendall produced $3,741,364.58 
 from 775,686 tons of ore. The Kendall was capitalized for $2,000,000 
 and paid $1,555,000 in dividends. To avoid threatened litigation the 
 Barnes-King bought the mine and other property for $100,000 early in 
 
 1917. The last four years the mine has been operated under lease, and 
 from June 1, 1915, to December 31, 1918, $98,409.02 was recovered from 
 39,923 tons of ore. The low grade ore has come entirely from a big open 
 cut and an output is maintained of several thousand dollars a month, ex- 
 cept when heavy snow interferes with mining. The ore body of the Kendall 
 is generally elliptical in shape but with irregular boundaries and some- 
 times is over 300 feet in diameter. It occurs at the contact of a dike of 
 rhyolite porphyry and limestone. Both lime and porphyry have been re- 
 placed by gold and form ore. The size of the ore body decreased in 
 depth and is believed to be worked out except near the surface. 
 
 Claims were located on replacement deposits in limestone to the north 
 of the Kendall mine as early as 1887 by Barnes, Wunderlin, Woodman 
 and King. They gradually added to their holdings until they controlled 
 over 200 acres adjacent to the town of Kendall. A company composed 
 chiefly of Butte people, purchased the property in 1906. The company 
 was capitalized for $2,000,000. The ores proved low grade and the com- 
 pany made little profit, although a total of over $1,500,000 in gold was 
 produced. The mine was developed by a long tunnel, shaft and drifts, 
 and the old workings exceed two miles in extent. A new management 
 took charge in 1912, reconstructed the 200-ton cyanide mill and abandoned 
 the old workings and purchased the North Moccasin property. The North 
 Moccasin is located between the original Barnes-King and the Kendall 
 and had already produced $250,000 in gold, mostly from an open cut. A 
 shaft on the Santiago claim was deepened to 500 feet with an incline to a 
 further depth, and careful development work disclosed a large ore body. 
 The ore body is of lenticular form. It varies from a few inches to 50 
 feet thick and in some places is 400 feet wide. It dips steeply at the sur- 
 face and flattens out below the bottom of the shaft. It has been developed 
 for 1,200 feet on the dip. A large part of the ore body is stoped out, from 
 which the Barnes-King has recovered $1,909,935.58 up to December 31, 
 
 1918. The ore averages about $8-$10 in gold per ton, of which 90 per 
 cent is recovered. The best grade of ore, worth $20-$30 per ton, was 
 mined below the bottom of the shaft. This ore contained so much car-
 
 — 33 — 
 
 bonaceous matter that it interfered with the cyanide process and had to 
 be roasted before cyanidation. At about 1,200 feet on the dip or nearly 
 700 feet below the surface, the ore body is thin and lower in grade. Most 
 of the ore now comes from the upper levels. Careful assays are necessary 
 to tell the ore from worthless limestone. The Barnes-King ore body 
 dips with the limestone strata and no porphyry is exposed in the workings. 
 The limestone was uplifted by a laccolithic intrusion which was probably 
 the source of the gold-bearing solutions. The flattened strata in the bottom 
 of the Barnes-King mine indicate that the laccolith does not extend far 
 below the town of Kendall. The Barnes-King Development Company 
 has paid dividends of $300,000 up to March, 1919. 
 
 The ore body of the Barnes-King occurs in the thin beds of limestone 
 at the top of the carboniferous, and under the Jurassic shales and sand- 
 stones. This zone is stained yellow and red with iron oxide in a belt near- 
 ly surrounding the Moccasins. Ar great deal of prospecting has been 
 done along this zone by shafts and tunnels and some low grade ore has 
 been found, but no other mines have been developed. 
 
 The Golden Discovery was near the Kendall and considerable sums 
 were spent on development work on the property. Some good ore was 
 found but no considerable body of ore was discovered and the property has 
 not been worked for the last decade. Quite a little work was done on the 
 Gold Links near by without profitable results. 
 
 The Abbey, north of the old Barnes-King, sunk a shaft some years 
 ago and drifted in on the mineralized zone but found no commercial ore 
 body. The North Kendall, on the north side of the mountains, developed by 
 a tunnel and other workings which cut some low grade gold ore. Develop- 
 ment work has been done during the last few years on this property. 
 Considerable prospecting has been done on the Weal Kendall by tunnels 
 
 i'nd winzes. Some gold ore and galena has 1 n developed chiefly along 
 
 the contact of lime and porphyry. Considerable topaz, which cuts Into 
 clear transparent gems, resembling diamonds, has come from the West 
 Kendall. 
 
 Little Belt and Oilier Mountain (ironps. 
 
 Considerable time and money has been spenl in the South Moccasins 
 in searching for ore bodies. Claims have been staked on yellow -and 
 stone, decayed porphyry and limestone porphyry contacta Low grade 
 ere has been found in small stringers in Jurassic sandstone on the south 
 slopes of the mountains, and traces elsewhere 
 
 A prospect of galena and zinc ore was mined on the Hardly Aide prop 
 erty in the broad valley between Hanover and the mountains It is sur- 
 rounded by shale and sandstone. While a dike and sheel of porphyry are 
 near by, the writer believes thai 'in- mineralisation In the pocket and 
 fracture zones of the Mesozoic sandstane resulted from precipitation from 
 
 COOl meteorie waters that, dissolved the metals from a disseni inateil form 
 in the porphyry of the mountain mass The fr.nture, ;) re tilled with well 
 
 formed calclte crystals, ho it seems probable thai the solutions were cool 
 
 and had nol tided from an deptfa A Capplfl > nierly 
 
 overlay the sandstone ami restricted mineralisation to It No important 
 ore body has been found in the brecclated sandstone 
 
 Prospecting for gold ami copper has been done in the Big Sno\\\ Moun 
 
 tains especially in Swimming Woman Canyon The prospects are Iocs 
 rn fracture zones in black and green shale of the Bell Series, whicb bave
 
 — 34 — 
 
 been filled with calcite and iron oxide. Nothing of value has been found. 
 A few prospects were located on iron stained limestones, but nothing of 
 value has been found. 
 
 Gold was discovered in that part of the Little Belts which are in Fergus 
 County, near Yogo, in 1879, and soon the town had a population of 1,200, 
 but development work failed to disclose important ore bodies and the 
 placers also proved disappointing, hence the old town was abandoned in 
 1883. Considerable prospecting has been done on the mountain slopeB 
 along Dry Wolf and Running Wolf Creeks. Lead-silver ore predominate 
 in this district, and work has ben done on some copper prospects. The 
 ore occurs as replacements in limestone near contacts with intrusive igne- 
 ous rocks. The ore bodies have usually proved small and pockety, but 
 some rich ore has been mined. The production has amounted to possibly 
 $100,000, of which the Mountainside is credited with $30,000. The Sir 
 Walter Scott, Weatherwax and Woodhurst produced lead and silver ore in 
 the past and a few crystals of vanadinite were found in the Sir Walter 
 Scott. The Yankee Girl shipped several carloads of complex ore of lead, 
 copper, silver, gold and zinc in 1916-1917. An extensive deposit of high- 
 grade hematite occurs on Woodhurst Mountain and smaller bodies of iron 
 ore have been found elsewhere in the Little Belts. 
 
 Production. 
 
 The total production of metals in Fergus County has been probably over 
 $18,000,000 by the end of 1918, of which the Judiths produced a little 
 more than half. The remainder mostly came from the North Moccasins. 
 The totals are estimated as follows: Judiths, over $10,000,000; North 
 Moccasins, nearly $8,000,000; Eastern Little Belts, $100,000. In addition 
 about $2,000,000 of raw sapphires have come from Yogo and other millions 
 of coal, gypsum, brick lime and cement rock, bringing the total value of 
 the mineral produced in Fergus County to the end of 1918 to nearly 
 $25,000,000. 
 
 CATTIiE ON THK RAX UK.
 
 — 35— 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Mineral Fuel Resources of Fergus County. 
 
 The only developed mineral resource of Fergus County is coal, but 
 there are favorable possibilities for oil and gas, and prospecting for 
 them is in active progress. 
 
 Coal. 
 
 The Kootenai formation contains almost all the valuable coal, but 
 coal for local use near the Missouri can be mined from the Eagle and 
 Judith River formations. There are indications of coal in the Lance. 
 The carbonaceous shales of the Quadrant and Colorado formations have 
 been prospected for coal at various times, but there are no workable beds 
 in those formations. Millions of tons of coal have been mined at 
 Roundup from Tertiary formations, but this is now included in Mussel- 
 shell County. 
 
 There are three beds of coal in the Kootenai, near its base. The best 
 bed underlies a thick bedded sandstone that forms prominent bluffs 
 and usually the coal can be mined by drifts on the side of the valley. 
 In many places the Kootenai coal is of too poor quality to mine. The 
 best coal is found on McDonald Creek Divide and between Forest Grove 
 and Gilt Edge, on Boyd Creek, southeast of Lewistown up Spring Creek, 
 and at Lehigh. Fairly good coal is mined near Utica and at Saager 
 Canyon, near the Belts, toward the head of Beaver Creek, in the foot- 
 hills of the Snowies, and in the valley of Warm Spring Creek, east of 
 Brooks. The coal is of poor quality around the Moccasins and at Judith 
 Gap. It is too deeply buried to be mined at present prices in the Judith 
 Basin, west of Lewistown, until an upfold of the strata exposes the coal 
 beds at Lehigh. There are many hundred million tons of coal in Fergus 
 County, and about a million tons has been mined so far and sold for 
 over $2,000,000. Fergus County coal suffers because mining is expensive, 
 due to the thin beds and from competition with the better grade of coal 
 coming from Roundup, Red Lodge and Wyoming. The Kootenai coal is 
 classified as a bituminous coal. Should occasion demand it, the output 
 of coal in Fergus County can be largely increased. It now amounts to 
 about 300,000 tons a year. 
 
 Most of the coal mined in Fergus County comes from Lehigh. The 
 Cottonwood Coal Company operates two mint's there and is producing 
 1,000 tons per day which can easily be Increased. One mine is a shallow 
 shaft, the other is a drift mine. The coal bed is about eight feet thick, 
 and contains considerable bone and shale This and the coal dust are 
 removed by washing. The Cottonwood Coal Company operates the largest 
 coal washing plant in Montana where the waste La removed) and carried 
 
 by an aerial train hundreds of yards away and dumped into a eoulee. 
 
 Several hundred men are employed In the mines. The coal is mostly 
 used by the Great Northern Railway. The company started selling coal 
 from its first mine in L914 and its drift mine in 1918. 
 
 The old Qebo mine, in South Lewistown, produced considerable coal 
 
 in the past and is still operated in a small way. Other mines up Spring 
 
 <"re. k produce several hundred tons a year and are operated at Interval! 
 Good coal la produced on McDonald Creek Divide and man] thousand 
 tons are annually produced from everal small mines. Their output Ih 
 hauled to market in wagons. Producing minei Include the Black Diamond, 
 Cox, and WeingardtB. The Jackmnn mine, near Forest Grove, ship': bj
 
 I 
 
 I MK FLAT LAND ALONG TBD0 CREEK IS THE FLOODPLAIN OP THE STREAM 
 THE ROLLING LAND IN THE BACKGROUND IS FOOTHILL LAND, VALUAB] 
 
 FORMED WHEN THE RP7ERS FLO
 
 ■ 
 
 t **S* '- " 
 
 1 
 
 TOM LAND," EXTENSIVE PLAT ABOVE THE STREAM, \ "BENCH" AND 
 GRAZING. THE BENCHES ARE THE BEST GRAIN LAND AND WERE 
 \ HIGHER LEVEL THAN AT PR1 81 VT. 

 
 — 38 — 
 
 rail to Lewistown, as it is located but a few hundred feet from the rail- 
 way. Alines near Gilt Edge and New Year help supply the nearby 
 ranchers and before the decadence of the gold mining industry the coal 
 was demanded for power by the gold mines. Mines at Saager Canyon, 
 and on Rock Creek and Beaver Creek are work in a small way each year. 
 A low grade coal occurs in the Judith River formation in 
 parts of Northern Fergus County, but only carbonaceous shale 
 occurs in the Southeastern section. The coal is overlain by a 
 bed of oyster shells a few inches thick that makes a good, 
 marker. The coal will not pay to mine on a large scale, but fuel 
 is scarce owing to the treeless character of much of the country and the 
 coal can be mined by the ranchers for their own use as at Cutbank, east 
 of Winifred. Considerable prospecting for coal has been done along 
 Dog Creek. The Eagle sandstone contains thin beds of fairly good coal 
 between Fullerton and Judith P. O. and near Deerfield, which are capable 
 of small production. There are many faults in Northern Fergus County 
 for 20 miles south of the Missouri. These faults bring the Eagle sand- 
 stane and Judith River formations to the surface and makes the coal out- 
 crop more widely than it otherwise would. Unfortunately the tipping of 
 the coal bed makes mining difficult and ha^ caused the coal near the 
 outcrop to slack and weather to worthless material. It is very unlikely, 
 that any coal will be mined in the Eagle Sandstone and Judith River 
 beds of Fergus County except to supply a limited local demand. 
 
 Petroleum and Natural Gas. 
 
 Petroleum in commercial quantities has not been discovered in Fer- 
 gus County, but prospecting is actively in progress and an important 
 discovery may be considered possible. Nearly a dozen oil companies have 
 been organized for business in Fergus County, some of which never 
 pass the promotion stage, but wells have been drilled by four of them. 
 
 Oil may occur in the rocks under variable conditions, but experience 
 shows that ti most frequently is found when certain geologic require- 
 ments are satisfied, and by searching to see if these are present much 
 time and money can be saved on prospecting. First there should be a 
 source for oil and this is generally considered to be formed from decaying 
 plant and animal matter deposited when the rocks were laid down. Oil 
 seepages may indicate the presence of oil but are not a safe criterion in 
 determining if it is present in commercial quantities. Iron hydroxide on 
 water has an iridescence similar to oil, and decaying vegetation in stag- 
 nant water liberates gas and oil, sometimes mistaken for petroleum. Oil 
 most frequently is formed in peculiar black shales and bituminous lime- 
 stone but these are usually too dense to make good reservoirs for deposits 
 of oil. There should be present a porous rock, usually sandstone, to act 
 as a reservoir and this should be capped with an impervious stratum in 
 order that the oil and gas shall not escape. Experience shows that to 
 form commercial pools of oil the petroleum widely distributed in the 
 rocks should be caused to migrate from its source and to accumulate in 
 a limited area. The agent generally believed to cause the migration is 
 water and the oil pools usually collect in anticlines or upfolds of the 
 earth's crust, since oil is lighter than water, and if present in porous 
 rocks rises to the top of the water and collects in the highest places 
 possible. Gas, if present, will be at the top of the anticline, with petroleum 
 below it, and farther down the dip of the rocks. 
 
 In prospecting for petroleum the structure of the rocks should first
 
 —39— 
 
 be studied. An anticline, dome or other upward movement of the earth's 
 crust is not necessarily coincident with an elevation of the present sur- 
 face of the earth but more often its center is a valley worn by streams 
 since it was first formed. An anticline must be mapped by the dips of the 
 rocks. Faults are breaks in the earth's crust. Where a fault has re- 
 sulted in tipping the strata, oil and gas may occur at the top of inclined 
 beds of porous rock where such reservoir rocks are sealed by dense cap 
 locks the same as in anticlines. 
 
 Study has shown that there is a possibility that oil exists in the 
 Quadrant formation of Upper Carboniferous age and in the Colorado 
 shale of Cretaceous age. Some production of petroleum has come from 
 the Quadrant, in Southern Wyoming, and evidences of the presence of oil 
 in the Quadrant has been found in Central Montana. The Colorado shale, 
 or formations correlated with it, produces most of the petroleum and 
 natural gas in Wyoming and Western Canada. Gas has been found in 
 the Colorado at Baker and Glendive, in Montana, and petroleum in Elk 
 Basin, in Carbon County. The gas at Havre is thought to come from the 
 Eagle sandstone. 
 
 Oil and gas prospecting in Fergus County will be taken up by describ- 
 ing the companies organized for business in this locality, a few concerns 
 whose office is Lewistown, are included even if they are drilling else- 
 where. 
 
 The Fergus Oil & Gas Company was organized in 1913, with M. W. 
 Boerema and later Dr. J. H. P. Gauss as president. Several thousand 
 dollars worth of stock was sold, but promotion expenses absorbed this 
 and the company ceased an active existence before doing any prospecting 
 for oil or gas. It was capitalized for $250,000. 
 
 The Tanberg Oil Company was organized in 1913 with Lewistown men 
 the chief stockholders. Its operations have been limited to Southern 
 Montana, and to Wyoming fields, where the concern owns a large gas 
 well in Little Buffalo Basin. 
 
 A terrace structure at the foot of the Little Belts, west of Garneill. 
 was leased by Judith Gap parties in 1916. The possibility for oil there 
 is in the Quadrant. The structure has never been tested by the drill. 
 A company is drilling south of the Little Melts, on Mile Creek, and I a 
 pects to test out both the Colorado and Quadrant formations in their well 
 
 The Kansas-Montana Oil Company was organized in 1917 to prosped 
 
 the Winifred field, Men from Kansas are the Chief stockholders. The 
 field has been considered to possess oil and gas possibilities by men 
 from the U. S. Geological Survey and was reported on favorably b> Chai 
 
 N. Gould and other petroleum geologists. The company has leased 
 eral thousand acres and is drilling with a standard rig on a faulted dome 
 ticture with very steep dips, about three nub northeast of Winifred 
 The well was 2,200 feel deep m May, L919 The base of the Colorado lies 
 about 2,500 feet deep on thli tructure with the Judith itivei 
 posed at the surface. The ESagle sandstone was struck at 800 feel deptb 
 
 and contained a little gas and BhO^t Oil. A small amount of oil 
 
 was found in a shallow well dug for water west of Winifred 
 
 The Home oil Company R in 1917, with .1 ED Loren 
 
 president and manager. The company is capitalised for $1 .nun with 
 
 par value for the stock of LO cents 8 share Fergus County citizen ;ire 
 largely interested in the company, which started drilling with .-. standard 
 
 rig at Sour Dough Springs, about L0 miles east of Winifred, In August,
 
 — 40 — 
 
 191S. and by the end of the year had reached a depth of nearly 1,000 feet. 
 
 The Judith Oil Company was organized in 1917 with Lewistown men 
 the chief stockholders. The capital was $100,000. Fred Warren was 
 president. The company controls over 20,000 acres of leases and drilled 
 a well in 1917 and 1918 nearly 700 feet about a mile from the railroad 
 siding of Piper, on a dome on the McDonald Creek Divide. Production 
 was looked for in the Quadrant, which was penetrated by the drill for 
 almost its entire thickness. Small amounts of gas and a trace of oil were 
 found. Three porous sands were passed through, but each contained 
 water under a great head which made such a great flow of pure artesian 
 water that drilling was somewhat hampered. 
 
 The Grass Range Oil Company was organized late in 1916 by Lewis- 
 town and Grass Range men and leased 20,000 acres on a big dome at 
 Button Butte, about 10 miles southwest of Grass Range. The company's 
 holdings were reported upon favorably in 1917 by E. A. Ritter, a geologist 
 of Denver. The Jurassic formation is exposed at the surface and the pos- 
 sibility for oil lies in the Quadrant formation. The company sold some 
 stock and tried to interest producing oil companies in testing out the 
 big dome but was unsuccessful. It did not start drilling operations on its 
 own account. 
 
 In 1917 a small flow of gas was struck at 16 5 feet in a well bored 
 for water on the Dengle Bros.' ranch, north of Grass Range. John A. 
 Coleman of Lewistown and others soon organized the Ford Creek Oil 
 Company, with a capital of $500,000, and leased 11,000 acres of ground. 
 Drilling was done with a portable rig in 1917 and 1918, and continued 
 to a depth of about 650 feet. Operations were suspended in the summer 
 of 1918. In order to test out the Colorado at this point it will be neces- 
 sary to drill to a depth of 1,200-1,500 feet. The formation is perfectly 
 flat here and if oil is present it would probably be in thin lenses of 
 sandstone at the base of the Colorado. 
 
 In 1918 the North Basin Oil & Gas Company was organized by resi- 
 dents of the Winifred district with a capitalization of $100,000. Some 
 leases were secured. 
 
 The Judith Basin Oil Company was organized in 1918 by Billings and 
 Moore men with the intention of prospecting for oil near Moore. 
 
 The Sapphire Oil & Gas Company was incorporated by Lewistown 
 men in 1918 with a capital of $75,000, which was increased to $100,000 
 in 1919. The company own 3,000 acres of leases near Chanute, Kansas, 
 and by the end of 1918 had 23 producing wells. The Lewistown Oil 
 Company, capitalized for $500,000, was organized in 1919, and owns con- 
 siderable good ground in Southeastern Kansas, with several producing 
 wells. 
 
 The structure of Southeastern Fergus County is favorable in many 
 places for oil and gas accumulation. It must be remembered that the 
 presence or obsence of oil in commercial quantities cannot be told in 
 advance of drilling operations. Southeastern Fergus County is a geanti- 
 cline or anticlinorium, that is a very large upfold on which are minor 
 anticlines and domes. One limb of this gigantic upfold runs from Black 
 Butte across Box Elder Creek southeast to the Musselshell, which it crosses 
 near Mosby. The strata often dips north very steeply from this limb. 
 The southern limb runs from the Snowy Mountains through Northern 
 Musselshell County into Northeastern Rosebud and Southwestern Garfield 
 County, where it joins the northern limb. An immense dome with slight
 
 — 41— 
 
 dips, farther east, called the Porcupine dome, may be regarded as an ex- 
 tension of this immense anticline, which measures over 50 miles from 
 north to south and 100 miles from east to west. There are many small 
 domes on McDonald Creek Divide which may be regarded as the western 
 limits of the geanticline. Superimposed on this geanticline are at least 
 three long anticlines or series of connected domes. The most southerly 
 luns from the Little Snowies on a curving line through Devil's Basin, 
 in Musselshell County, towards the Bend of the Musselshell. A Roundup 
 company has drilled a well in Devil's Basin and leased a big acreage on 
 this fold. The middle anticline is really a series of domes, of which 
 Button Butte, on Elk Creek, is the most westerly. On Yellow Water Creek, 
 southwest of Winnett, is a large dome on which H. J. Knowles of San 
 Francisco has leased 4,000 acres. This axis of this fold runs a short dis- 
 tance north of Flatwillow for many miles and follows it down toward the 
 Musselshell. The most northerly anticline starts near the junction of Ford 
 Creek and Box Elder and runs about east toward the Musselshell. Several 
 domes have been worked out on it. One of these has been leased by a 
 California company called the Big Six, and other sections by Wright and 
 associates, who are drilling for oil south of the Little Belts. A small 
 flow of gas was encountered ina well drilled for water in a saddle between 
 two of these slightly dipping domes. The Musselshell Valley Oil com- 
 pany was organized in the spring of 1919 and obtained leases northeast 
 of Winnett. From a geological standpoint it seems probable that pros- 
 pecting for oil on some of the domes in the Winnett section by those who 
 can afford the risk is justified. Oil and gas, if present, will be found 
 near the base of the Colorado shale, which lies 1,500-3,000 feet below the 
 surface on the minor anticlines.
 
 — 42 — 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Non-Metallic Minerals Other Than Fuels. 
 
 Sapphire, the gem form of corundum, occurs as flat rhombohedral 
 disseminated crystals in a dike of dark colored igneous rock at Yogo, 
 in the foothills of the Little Belt Mountains. The surrounding rock is 
 carboniferous limestone. The sapphire bearing dike is six miles long, 
 12 to 20 feet wide, and of unknown depth. Most of the sapphires found 
 in the world come from Yogo, except those recovered from placers. 
 
 Sapphires were discovered in the nineties in placers mined for gold. 
 There was not sufficient gold to make its recovery profitable, but the sap- 
 phires were traced to their source in 1894. Many claims were located along 
 the dike and the weathered rock was mined in open cuts and the sap- 
 phires washed out by hand methods. Later the dike was owned by two 
 companies — the New Sapphire Mining Syndicate, Limited, of London and 
 the American mine. The London company purchased the American mine 
 in 1914 and now controls the entire output of sapphires. 
 
 The sapphire bearing rock is now mined by underground methods, 
 and the freshly mined rock is dumped on wooden floors, where it is sub- 
 jected to weathering until considerably decayed. Then the dirt is washed 
 through sluices and the sapphires being heavier than the matrix ma- 
 terial sink to the bottom and are collected from the riffles. This process 
 is repeated on several floors each below the other until probably 9 5 per 
 cent of the sapphires are recovered. The sapphires collected from the 
 riffles are mixed with pyrite and various other heavy minerals. At the 
 English mine this material was concentrated in a jig, at the American 
 mine a magnetic separator was used. Few sapphires are cut and pol- 
 ished in the United States. Most of them are exported to London, Ant- 
 werp and Amsterdam, to be prepared for market there. They are then 
 reimported into America and we have to pay 15 per cent import duties on 
 them as well as paying Europe for their manufacture. Small and im- 
 perfect sapphires are used for watch jewels, meter bearings, phonograph 
 points, etc. 
 
 The annual value of sapphires mined at Yogo before the war was 
 about $250,000. The total product is probably worth $1,500,000. The 
 war has caused an almost total suspension of mining at Yogo for the 
 last four years. The sapphires produced from Yogo exceeded the value 
 of all other gems mined in the entire rest of the United States. 
 
 Th sapphires were formed in the igneous dike by crystallization from 
 the molten mass. The corundum probably was derived by differentia- 
 tions of the original material but might have resulted from the incor- 
 poration of Cambrian shales into the molten rock as it broke and fused 
 its way towards the surface. Curiously enough similar appearing dikes 
 nearby are barren of sapphires. 
 
 A considerable quantity of gem topaz has been produced from the 
 West Kendall mine, in the North Moccasin Mountains. Some has been 
 cut into clear, fine appearing precious stones. The output has been worth 
 many hundred of dollars and could be increased. Many "sapphires" picked 
 tip in the bench gravels of the Judith Basin are nothing but quartz, though 
 some make pretty settings when cut. Garnet occurs in the Judiths and 
 Belts, but not of gem quality. 
 
 Gypsum occurs in Fergus County as diamond shaped crystals, scat- 
 tered through black shale, of Cretaceous age, in the badlands, and thick 
 pure beds in the Ellis formation of Jurrasic age. Gypsum also occurs in
 
 —43 — 
 
 the Quadrant of Alaska Bench. The beds seem to have been formed by 
 evaporation of sea water in lagoons and small bodies of water. As the 
 water evaporated it would become supersaturated with gypsum and the 
 mineral would be precipitated. Purge gypsum beds, 10-30 feet thick, 
 occur at Hanover, on East Fork of Spring Creek, south of Forest Grove, 
 on Alaska Bench, near Tyler on Flatwillow Creek, etc. No workable beds 
 of gypsum occur around the Judiths, North Moccasins or eastern slopes 
 of the Belts. Gypsum contains water of crystallization. When heated this 
 water is expelled and plaster of paris formed. Wall plaster is made by 
 mixing hair with the dehydrated gypsum. At Hanover the gypsum is 
 mined by underground tunnels and stopes like coal, three feet of gypsum 
 being left to make a safe roof. The gypsum is crushed and powdered, 
 then put in a big iron kettle and calcined; that is, heated to several hun- 
 dred degrees, in order to drive off the water of crystallization. The Han- 
 over gypsum plant is operated by the Three Forks Company and can 
 produce 200 tons of wall plaster each day. It started producing in 1916. 
 it was first operated by a company of Lewistown men and was sold to 
 the Three Forks Company late in 19 1G. 
 
 The U. S. Gypsum Company has developed a great deposit of gypsum 
 near Heath, 10 miles southeast of Lewistown. This is known as the 
 Casofour Plant. It is developed by two inclines several hundred feet lony 
 connected by a drift. An immense amount of gypsum is in sight and 
 mining can be cheaply done. The war delayed completion of the plant 
 but a large mill will be built as soon as peace comes. 
 
 There are millions of tons of gypsum in Fergus County. Only those 
 deposits then which are conveniently located to railroads will pay to ex- 
 ploit under present circumstances. The same is true regarding lime- 
 stone and clay. 
 
 Fergus County is well supplied with most construction materials 
 which include limestone, sandstone, granite, marble, clay, gravel and 
 gypsum. 
 
 Pure limestone outcrops in inexhaustible amounts in the Belts, 
 Snowies, Judiths and Moccasins. Formerly it was burnt to lime in small 
 kilns for local use but after the completion of a railroad into the Basin 
 it proved more convenient and less expensive to ship lime in from more 
 modern plants. It seems probable that a modern lime plant should suc- 
 ceed financially in this region. Crushed limestone makes a good mixture 
 for concreate and some is crushed for (hat purpose at Hanover. Lime- 
 stone is not used for building stone in Fergus County and does not seem 
 well suited for it. A bed of limestone has been changed to marble on 
 the slopes of Black Butte by an intrusion of IgneoUB rock, but it is not 
 believed that the occnranee is of economic importance. The chief use of 
 limestone is to make Portland cement at Hanover. 
 
 The Hanover plant of the Three Forks Portland Cement Company is 
 
 one of two plants in Montana owned by thla concern and was finished in 
 
 the spring of 1918, About 200 nun an- employed and the output of the 
 
 plant is 1,000 barrel! of cement a day The limestone la quarried near 
 the top of the South Moccasin Mountain! and reduced to a two Incb size 
 in «'i large electrically operated crusher. The coarsely crushed rock Is 
 
 carried by an aerial tramway I I, feel lonK to the <•« • n i *■ n t plant. There 
 
 It Is further crushed by a rotary crusher, mixed with shale, in proper pro- 
 portion as shown by analysis, and ground in tube mills. The material 
 is mixed with water to avoid dual and the slurry thus formed is conveyed
 
 — 44 — 
 
 to the top of a larse rotary kiln. The kiln is fired with powdered coal 
 and the slurry is suhject to a temperature of 3,500 degrees, which burns 
 it to a clinker. This is reduced to a very fine powder in tube mills and 
 forms Portland cement. A little gypsum is added to cement as a retarder 
 to prevent its setting too rapidly. The Hanover plant, including the 
 townsite, represents an investment of over $1,000,000. 
 
 Inexhaustible deposits of clay are found in Fergus County. Clay is 
 mined with a steam shovel at Hanover for use in making cement. The clay 
 bed is directly back of the plant and overlies the gypsum deposit. 
 
 At Lewistown, Kootenai shales are mined for use for making brick. 
 The plant makes 4,000,000 brick a year and makes building brick, tile 
 and paving brick of exceptionable quality. The shale is crushed and mixed 
 with water and made into brick and tile by forcing through dies and 
 cutting to proper size. It is then dried for a week in a drying kiln 
 end burnt to the finished product of coal fired kilns. There are six kilns 
 in use. Many buildings in Lewistown are of local brick and the product 
 is shipped extensively to surrounding towns and counties. The total 
 value of brick produced by the Lewistown plant to the end of 1918 
 amounts to a total of $172,372, besides $18,500 worth of tile. The plant 
 represents an investment of $100,000 and was started in 1911. 
 
 Sand for cement and plaster work is produced by two plants in South 
 Lewistown, which crush the sandstone to fine sand. They annually pro- 
 duce several hundred yards of sand, worth $3 per yard. The Lewistown 
 Concrete Supply Company operates a plant on Boyd Creek, in Lewistown, 
 where bench gravels are screened and washed to furnish stone and coarse 
 sand for cement walks, etc. A stone crushing plant is frequently oper- 
 ated to provide crushed stone for bithulithic pavements. The railroads 
 have used many thousand carloads of the bench gravels for ballasting 
 roadbeds. The largest gravel pit is located a few miles from Ware; an- 
 other is near Brooks. 
 
 Sandstone, usually that of Kootenai age, has been quite widely 
 quarried for building purpose in Fergus County, especially near Lewis- 
 town. It is not an enduring stone and contains iron that rusts and in- 
 jures its appearance. Many handsome buildings are built from local 
 sandstone, however, for example: In Lewistown, the Bright Hotel, Old 
 High School and Gym, Library, Presbyterian and M. E. Churches, Power's, 
 Lehman's and many other store buildings and residences are built of it. 
 Many buildings in other towns of Fergus County, as well as ranch homes, 
 are built of sandstone. It is easy to quarry sandstone, as it outcrops in 
 bold cliffs. 
 
 A little granite has been quarried near Geraldine, in Chouteau County, 
 and a bank building and a few other buildings constructed of it. How- 
 ever, it weathers too easily to make a satisfactory building stone. The 
 porphyry of the Judiths and Moccasins is too deeply decomposed to make 
 a building stone and is never used. Field stone and boulders from the 
 bench gravels are sometimes gathered and used for porch pillars and 
 other decorative purposes, but no homes are built of them. 
 
 The high price of potash during the war stimulated search for deposits 
 of this valuable salt. Potash was found in some alkali lakes north of 
 Highwoods, near Montague and Geraldine, and as incrustations and im- 
 pregnations of alkali in cut banks of shale and on alkali flats. An average 
 of 28 per cent potash was obtained near Pownal. Most places had only a
 
 -45- 
 
 trace of potash, and in no case did prospecting disclose any deposit that 
 can be worked at a profit. Some igneous rock in the Judiths and at 
 Square Butte contain 8 to 12 per cent potash. If a process for the ex- 
 traction of potash from igneous rock is ever perfected such rocks will be 
 valuable and can furnish millions of tons of potash. 
 
 A specimen of strontianite has been found on Cottonwood Creek, 
 near the Snowies, but no commercial deposit has been located. 
 
 u 
 
 O 
 
 s 
 
 t 

 
 —46— 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 Picturesque Fergus County. 
 
 The varied surface features and scenery of Fergus County make it 
 very picturesque. The first things noticed by an observer are the mountain 
 groups, some of which are visible from every part of the county. All 
 Fergus County was once covered by the sea, and as the land was uplighted 
 above the ocean the rocks were folded and mashed together and intruded 
 by great masses of lava resulting in our mountain uplifts. As the moun- 
 tains were uplifted very slowly the agents of weathering and erosion were 
 steadily at work breaking up and removing the exposed strata, although 
 not as fast as the rocks were uplifted. Rocks nearly one mile in thick- 
 ness have been thus removed from above the present summit of the 
 mountains. The summits and ridges in the mountains usually result from 
 the greater resistance of certain layers of rock, especially limestone. The 
 frost and other agents of weathering have broken much of the limestone 
 into angular blocks which form steep talus slopes or "slide rock." Frost 
 has sometimes heavy the limestone on the mountains up into piles that 
 appear like the effect of an explosion. 
 
 Great masses of lava intruded along bedding planes of the sedimentary 
 rocks and domed up the overlying rocks. These intrusions are called 
 laccoliths and were the cause of the Judith and Moccasin Mountains. 
 The rocks at the top of the dome were probably fractured by the folding 
 they were subjected to, and their positions likewise caused them to be 
 first attacked by the forces of erosion. As a result streams established 
 themselves well up on the slopes of the uplifts, the original top of many 
 of these domes has been removed and a valley exists where once the 
 mountains were highest. Limekiln, Ruby and Alpine Gulches cross lac- 
 coliths and the stratified rocks dip away in all directions from the heart 
 of the gulches. Smaller domes doubtless resulting from laccoliths oc- 
 cur at Black Butte, Hanover and on McDonald Creek Divide. The igneous 
 rock usually intruded the Cambrian shales but on the east end of the 
 Judiths the Cretaceous formations were intruded. The dips of the rocks 
 in the Big Snowy Mountains are shorter and steeper on the south, while 
 in the east end of the Little Belts the strata dips steeper on the north. 
 Both the Big Snowy and Eastern Little Belt Mountains result from articli 
 in the east end of the Little Belts the strata dips steeper on the 
 north. Both the Big Snowy and Eastern Little Belt Mountains 
 result from anticlines (upfolds of the rock.) The country east 
 of the Snowies contains a number of faults. An immense anti- 
 cline (geanticline) occupies Southeastern Fergus County and con- 
 tains several minor domes, synclines and anticlines. The north flank 
 of the geanticline starts near the Judiths and the rocks dip northward 
 very steeply in places, giving rise to a prominent hogback ridge east of 
 Black Butte. The south flank is in Northern Musselshell County. The 
 two limbs of the anticline extend across the Musselshell and come to- 
 gether in Southwestern Garfield and Northwestern Rosebud Counties. 
 
 Wherever rocks are inclined the removal of soft rocks etches the 
 hard layers into relief and forms hogback ridges, which are-steep or gentle, 
 depending on the angular dip of the strata. Such hogbacks and sloping 
 benches (i. e., Alaska Bench) nearly surround the Snowy, Judith and 
 Moccasin Mountains. The slope towards the mountains is always steep, 
 as the soft rock under the hard surface layer is removed by erosion except
 
 —47— 
 
 where protected by the hard. Alaska Bench is being eaten back by the 
 removal of the soft rock which undermines the top hard layer and causes 
 it to fall and slip down hill. Landslides are fresuent on these steep 
 slopes during thaws and heavy rains. Faults or breaks in the rocks occur 
 around the South Moccasins, at Kelly Hill on the Gilt Edge road, near 
 Tyler, near Heath and Castle Butte, on Alaska Bench, the Little Snowy 
 Mountains and at intervals through a great portion of Northern Fergus 
 County from the Judith River, near Fullerton, east for 50 miles. Beds of 
 sandstone have been etched into relief on the faults in the northern part 
 of the county and are often covered with scrub pine trees. When flat lay- 
 ing rocks have been extensively eroded, hard layers of rock have often 
 protected softer rock underneath fro merosion and buttes, such as Dove- 
 tail Butte, Chain Butte and those along the lower Judith River have 
 resulted. 
 
 Where bluffs and ledges of sandstone are exposed to the wind they 
 are often eroded and etched into all sorts of curious shapes by the sand 
 and dust blown by the wind. 
 
 Running water has been the most important agent of erosion in 
 Fergus County and the mountain streams have all slowly carved the great 
 valleys in which they occur. The material eroded from the mountain 
 canyons was in part carried to the ocean and in part deposited along 
 the streams where their velocity decreased. The streams formerly 
 flowed at higher levels and the gravel covering the benches of the Judith 
 Basin was brought from the mountains and left on the benches by run- 
 ning water. 
 
 Rivers erode narrow valleys until they lower these to base level, then 
 begin to widen the valleys by undercutting their banks on the outside of 
 the bends and depositing sediment in the still water on the inside of the 
 bends. The result is that a flat or flood plain develops along a stream 
 If the base level is lowered the stream renews its down cutting and the 
 old flood plain is left above the stream and is called a terrace. Four 
 beautiful terraces exist along the Judith River and are well illustrated at 
 Deerfield. Spring Creek, at Lewlstown, plainly shows three stream levels. 
 Each terrace was developed when the stream flowd for a long time at that 
 level. The high benches in the Basin that slope gently from the moun- 
 tains toward 1 1 1 « - main drainage lim s were developed by widely meandering 
 streams, some of which with probably not in the same locations as the 
 
 present day streames. Prom the great extent of these benches, and thi 
 fact that some of them extend acrosi the beveled edges of bard and son 
 ro<k strata alike, it i thoughl certain that parts of Fergus Count; 
 
 were once reduced nearly tO base level. At present nearly all the streams 
 are actively cutting down their beds A hard bed of rOCS Sometime 
 causes a temporary base- level On a stream This happened at llaiio\.r. on 
 
 spring Creek, where the 'ream flows through s narrow rallej cut in 
 
 sandstone. From Hanover to beyond l.ewistown the stream Hows through 
 
 a broad fiat valley that was developed at this temporary base level Be 
 tween the high level benches and the river Hats, the "badlands" or 
 "breaks" are often developed. These ocmr especially along the Mis- 
 souri, Musselshell. Judith Rivers and their chief t ribiit a r i • ■ s in Northern 
 and Eastern Fergus County Badland develop in soft easily eroded rockl
 
 —48— 
 
 such as shales interbedded with more resistant sandstone beds, and their 
 formation is helped by steep slopes and torrentials rains. 
 
 Dikes occur near the Highwood Mountains and south of the Missouri. 
 They consist of lava that entered cracks in the rocks below the surface 
 and hardened there, and are now exposed by erosion. They are usually 
 only a few feet thick but are harder than the rocks around them and 
 stand several feet above the general level of the country and often can be 
 traced for several miles. Northwest of Grass Range a dike of vertical 
 sandstone a few feet thick extends for about a mile across flat lying shales. 
 It was probably formed by qnicksands being forced into a fissure opened 
 by an earthquake or similar disturbance when the sediments were soft, 
 and the quicksands later solidified. 
 
 Many caves, sinks, arches and natural bridges occur in the limestone 
 of the mountains of Fergus County. Water seeped along joints, cracks, 
 and bedding planes of the limestone and when it contained carbon dioxide 
 would dissolve out the limestone, making a cave. Cavities on the face of 
 a cliff were often enlarged by weathering and erosion until only a portion 
 of the rack was left to form an arch, natural bridge or pinnacle. Rock 
 pinnacles and needles have also been formd by erosion and weathering in 
 sandstone. Sinks are very common on the plateau like summit of the 
 Snowy Mountains. Some have been formed by the collapse of the roof 
 of a cavern but more have resulted from the constant enlargement of a 
 fissure by solution and erosion by water. Crystal Lake, a beautiful little 
 body of water on the West Fork of Rock Creek Canyon, in the heart of the 
 Snowies, is probably in part formed by the solution of the limestone strata 
 on which it rests. Its only outlet is underground, and it helps feed the 
 large springs and seeps that are the source of Rock Creek. Many of 
 the streams of the mountains flow underground, except in time of flood, 
 while passing over the outcrops of the thick Carboniferous limestone. 
 
 There are many interesting caves in Fergus County. One on top of 
 the South Moccasin Mountains, that had no visible entrance, was dis- 
 covered while blasting for the crushing plant for the cement rock quarry. 
 It has one large room lined with large crystals of calcite. Several smaller 
 passages open off from this room and some contain small stalactites and 
 columns. The cave can be followed back for about 300 feet. There is a 
 deposit of yellow ochre on the floor left as a residue when the limestone 
 was dissolved. Scores of caves are found in the Big Snowy Mountains. 
 A large cave occurs on Cottonwood Canyon and another on the narrow 
 ridge between Cottonwood Canyon and Careless Creek Canyon. A cave 
 in Horsethief Canyon is said to have once been occupied by counterfeiters. 
 Another cave a few hundred yards above the mouth of Big Dry Canyon 
 contains a trickle of water from the roof to an opening in the floor. 
 Although the cave is only 12-20 inches high in this place deer signs in- 
 dicate that the animals visit the place for water which in summer is 
 scarce about there, so they must crawl back on their bellies to obtain it. 
 There are no living springs in the limestone forming the top of the Big 
 Snowy Mountains in a dry summer. Herds of sheep pastured there secure 
 moisture from the heavy dews. The sheepherders and forest servic guards 
 obtain water from melting ice mined in ice caves. 
 
 There are many caves in Fergus County in which ice exists the entire 
 year and continues to form much of the summer. Several such occur on 
 top of the Snowy Mountains, west of Half Moon Pass. Some of the most
 
 — 49 — 
 
 interesting can be visited by following the rangers' trail from Crystal 
 Lake along the telephone line to the tripods that support the wire across 
 the treeless summit. To the west, several hundred yards, ice caves occur 
 above the brink of Rock Creek Canyon. The largest cave is about 100 
 feet below the edge of the cliffs at the head of Porcupine Creek Canyon. 
 The entrance is of moderate width, and slopes downward for 50 feet, 
 where a good-sized room is entered. The floor is covered with ice and 
 usually two thick columns of ice extend from the ceiling to the floor. 
 
 An interesting ice cave exists in the Judith Mountains. It is best 
 visited by stopping a few hundred feet from the foot of the steep hill 
 that occurs on the Gilt Edge stage road and following the trail up the 
 ravine onto the ridge. The cave occurs on the northwest side of the 
 mountain among some thick scrub pine and the entrance cannot be seen 
 any great distance away. A path leads down over broken rock into the 
 first chamber, that rarely contains ice. Another short descent brings 
 the visitor to the second chamber. Here the floor is covered with ice 
 and icicles and columns of ice are often seen in the spring, early summer 
 and fall. The ice, in part, has frozen the rocks of a talus slope together 
 and slopes from the rocks to the floor. This ice results chiefly from the 
 freezing of snow water that seeps down through the rock. Frost usually 
 heavily covers the walls and roof of the cave. The thickness of the ice 
 on the floor of the cave is unknown but probably is several feet where 
 deepest. 
 
 In the travertine of the "Park," on the south end of the North Mocca- 
 sins and on McDanold Creek Divide there are a large number of long, 
 narrow fissures, some of which descend many feet below the surface of the 
 ground. Ice lasts during the summer in several of these fissure caves. 
 They are easy to reach and interesting to visit. 
 
 Ice caves occur in the Little Belt Mountains, near the Twin Sisters. 
 
 The ice in the caves originates in different ways. A considerable part 
 seeps in on the floor from melting snow and early spring rains and 
 freezes there. A little snow is blown in and is consolidated to ice but 
 the ice would not last all summer from this source. There arc many 
 crevices and cracks in the limestone leading off from the caves. During 
 the winter cold air. often chilled many degrees below zero, would enter 
 (he fractured rock ami cool it considerably below freezing. Frost freeh 
 
 condenses on BUCh rock surfaces ami b times is nearly an inch thick. 
 
 Any air that emerges from the crevices of the rock is chilled below tin 
 freezing point and freezes the water thai drips and seeps into the cave 
 The ice remains drj and continues to form during the spring ami eari> 
 summer and fail. During the winter there is no water entelng the cave to 
 
 free Z e. During the last ol the summer the Ice may slowly melt, InM th. 
 is too much to entirely disappear during the few weeks after the suppl] 
 of "cold." stored in the rock . Is exhausted AJ B result, the ice |a 
 the entire year. An ice cave is an inters ting place to visit, and is • 
 specially plea ant for picnic parlies in the summer. 
 
 There are several large springs In 'he county 'lie' Big Spring, (hre 
 miles above Lewistown, is be I known, it sufflci tor the municipal watei 
 
 pupply and furnishes most of the water m Big Spring Creek. The watei 
 
 flows underground througb porous sandstone from the Snowy .Mountains 
 
 to the spring. The Warm Spring between the North and South Moccasin 
 
 Mountains furnishes all the flow of Warm Spring Creek which Is enough
 
 —50— 
 
 to run a small power plant and irrigate a large acreage. Vast hot 
 springs formerly existed around the Judith and Moccasin Mountains, 
 that deposited thick beds of travertine covering many square miles of 
 land. 
 
 There are only a few lakes in Fergus County, Crystal Lake, in the Big 
 Snowies, is most picturesque. It is a shallow body of water, half a mile 
 long, but is surrounded by high forest covered mountains and is a beau- 
 tiful camping site. War Horse, Wild Horse and Bear Lakes are north 
 of Grass Range. The lakes occur in a treeless country and their basins 
 were probably formed in part by deflation by the wind. Around the 
 steep face of Alaska Bench are several landslide lakes where water col- 
 lects in depressions above a landslide block. Such landslide lakes 
 can be seen at the base of other hogback ridges and benches that sur- 
 round the mountain groups. Beaver frequently dam up the clear streams 
 and while good farm land is sometimes injured, the animals add greatly 
 in making the streams more picturesque. 
 
 The mountain and foothill streams are usually well filled with trout 
 and often cascade swiftly on their course between banks shielded to 
 the water's edge with thickets and trees. Cottonwood, Rock Creek, East 
 Fork, Swimming Woman, North Fork of Flatwillow are beautiful streams 
 to follow up the deep wide canyons they have carved in the Snowy Moun- 
 tains. Towards their head the steepness of the slopes increase and cas- 
 cades and waterfalls are higher. In most of the canyons hard layers 
 of rock in the bed of the stream cause waterfalls in some places 10 to 20 
 feet high. The hard rock layers often have a gentle dip and result in the 
 floor of the valley resembling a series of gigantic steps. The canyons in 
 the mountains are being cut headwards and often have resulted in cut- 
 ting down the main range of the mountains to a knife edge ridge, as 
 between Careless and Cottonwood Canyons, in the Big Snowies. This 
 forms the prominent notch in the mountains visible from the Basin and 
 is often mistaken for Half Moon Pass. Half Moon Pass was originally 
 the summit of the Big Snowies and has been formed by the headway 
 erosion of the North Fork of Flatwillow and Swimming Woman Creeks. 
 
 The steep square cut limestone cliffs, the tumbling torrents of water, 
 the wonderful views across Montana from Canada and Yellowstone Park 
 that one can enjoy from the summits of the mountains, the clear sky, the 
 swaying pines and the fleeting birds and timid deer, make a camping 
 trip in the mountains something distinctly worth while and decidedly 
 picturesque.
 
 —51 — 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Climate and Ground Water. 
 
 Government precipitation records prove that the rainfall of the Judith 
 Basin is 16% to 20 inches annually, about one-fourth more than the 
 country north, east, south and west. The greater rainfall makes failure of 
 crops from lack of rains nearly unknown, and one summer fallow in three or 
 four years appears to be sufficient to insure good crops. The precipitation 
 in the foothills and mountains is more than in the Basin. In Northern 
 and Eastern Fergus the rainfall is not as great as near Lewistown, and 
 summer fallowing once in two or three years is necessary to insure a 
 good yield of grain. Experience has abundantly proved the value of the 
 clean summer fallow in conserving moisture for the following season, 
 except on very porous gravel underlain at two or three feet depth by a 
 hardpan of gravel cement. 
 
 Weather records have been kept at Utica since 1893 and at Lewis- 
 town since 1895. These show that at Lewistown 9.12 inches of rainfall 
 in the three growing months of May, June and July, or 45 per cent of 
 the moisture falls in 25 per cent of the time. At Utica, 8.31 inches or 
 50 per cent of the total fell on the average in the same months. This 
 very favorable distribution of rainfall is of great help to agriculture. The 
 May and June rains are of most importance for the winter wheat and 
 the June and July rains for the spring grain. Six Junes at Utica and 
 six at Lewistown had less than two inches of rain instead of the average 
 of 3.5 inches. Dry Junes either at Utica or Lewistown occurred in seven 
 years out of twenty-five and came in pairs in 1899-1900, 1903-1904, 1917- 
 1918. There have never been three dry Junes in succession. Less than 
 one inch of rain fell in June at Lewistown in 1912, but May and July 
 had above the average rainfall so crops suffered little. The same was 
 true of much of the Basin in 1918. In only May, 1897, did the May 
 rains fail in Lewistown and that was followed by a rainy June and 
 July. May is not as rainy at Utica and the May rains were less than two 
 inches in 10 years and leBB than 1.6 inches in four years. July rains 
 were less than one inch at Utica in seven years out of 25. At Lewistown 
 three out of 23 years bad a light July rainfall. In only 1900 and 1917 
 was the rainfall at these stations deficient (luring both June and July. 
 Little grain was planted in L900 bill in 1 !» 1 7 crops suffered generally. In 
 1918 partial failure resulted from lack of rains in June and July in 
 Northern Fergus County. The occasional dry years merely prove that 
 on the average no section of Montana is favored climatically so well as 
 Fergus County. 
 
 The winter! In Lewistown are dry, less than an inch of rainfall occurs 
 in each of the months of November, December, January. February and 
 
 March. The winters are generally mild, hem: tempered DJ the ChlnOOK 
 winds, as in 14-16 and L917 Li February, L916, was the coldest month 
 
 on record, as for LT. days in the mouth the thermometer! did not rise 
 
 above zero, with i i degrees K.iin eido-it . the lowest temperature. The 
 coldest recorded temperature In Lewistown is i- degrees Fahrenheit, but 
 other parts of the country have reported occasional unofficial record: \><- 
 
 low this. The hotie i month are Inly and Aug.u I \ temperature of 
 
 99 degree Fahrenheit was recorded in July. 1914, whicb was the hottest, 
 
 dryest month since L908. Spring wheat WU damaged one half by this 
 hot wave, but the winter wheat was exceptionally good. The autumn
 
 —52— 
 
 weather is usually open with favorable weather condiitons for seeding 
 and plowing. September has more rain than either August or October. 
 1896 is the dryest year on record at Utica. Two months were without rain 
 and the total precipitation was less than 10 inches. The dryest year on 
 record in Lewistown was 1904, when 13 ^ inches of rain fell. The wettest 
 year was 1909 when nearly 2 5 inches of rainfall occurred at Lewistown, 
 and over 24 inches at Utica. 1915 had perhaps the most generally fa- 
 vorable of conditions in recent years. June 1909 had the most rainfall, 
 in any one month in Fergus County, when it amounted to 6.66 inches. 
 
 Hailstorms sometimes damage crops considerably in Fergus County. 
 Hail is usually very local, and such storms were most frequent in 1912, 
 1915 and 1918. Hail most frequently occurs in the foothills, but prob- 
 ably no section of the county is entirely free from dangers of hail, although 
 usually severe hail is a rare occurrence. 
 
 The growing seasons for crops is not as long as in more southern 
 states, but due to the more northerly locations the sun shines for more 
 hours a day and crops mature more rapidly. 
 
 There is no evidence that the climate of Fergus County has changed 
 since records have been kept. Different years, however, may vary con- 
 siderably from the average. There seem to be a series of years that have 
 above the average rainfall followed by a series that have less than the 
 average. These series of wet and dry years probably occur in rather 
 definite cycles, but records have been kept for too short a time in Montana 
 for the author to attempt to make any generalizations regarding this matter. 
 After a study of local records up to the end of 1918, the writer believes 
 that at least two of the next three years will be very favorable for grain 
 crops, and that at least one and possibly two of the winters during the 
 same time will be severe. 
 
 Only a small part of rainfall enters the soil, probably more of snow 
 water enters the ground than of rain. Part of the rainfall runs off, part 
 evaporates and a small part disappears by percolations. Since the chief 
 cause of variations in yields of crops is variations in rainfall, the farmer 
 should seek to conserve it and plant drought resistant crops as hard 
 winter wheats. The time rain falls is very favorable to crops in Fergus 
 County. Torrential rains and hailstorms may be very destructive to 
 crops, but fortunately our rains are usually gentle. 
 
 The precipitation records secured at Lewistown, Moccasin Experiment 
 Station and Utica are as follows. Records were not kept at Lewistown 
 in 1917 and in two other months, so the records at Moccasin have been 
 used for those periods.
 
 -53— 
 
 LEWISTOWN- 
 
 
 c 
 
 .a 
 
 C 
 
 u 
 
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 o 
 
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 to 
 
 
 
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 i-a 
 
 
 3 
 
 ft 
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 s 
 1-1 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 w 
 
 o 
 O 
 
 o 
 
 P 
 
 
 
 1896 
 
 1.65 
 
 1.50 
 
 1.60 
 
 3.90 
 
 2.63 
 
 2.33 
 
 2.06 
 
 0.39 
 
 2.S6 
 
 0.38 
 
 2.43 1 
 
 T 21.73 
 
 1897 
 
 0.92 
 
 1.84 
 
 1.15 
 
 1.10 
 
 0.84 
 
 3.54 
 
 3.38 
 
 
 
 2.55 
 
 3.97 
 
 1.10 
 
 .... 
 
 1898 
 
 0.55 
 
 0.80 
 
 3.16 
 
 1.15 
 
 4.41 
 
 5.11 
 
 
 
 
 
 . . • 
 
 > • • •■ 
 
 ..... 
 
 1899 
 
 
 0.40 
 
 1.80 
 
 1.58 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 • *■ 
 
 ..... 
 
 
 
 
 
 1900 
 
 ... 
 
 
 
 
 
 1.50 
 
 0.55 
 
 4.20 
 
 O.SO 
 
 1.00 
 
 0.32 
 
 0.90. 
 
 
 
 1901 
 
 T 
 
 0.02 
 
 1.10 
 
 1.10 
 
 4.45 
 
 3.50 
 
 2.00 
 
 0.02 
 
 1.20 
 
 0.50 
 
 0.05 
 
 2.25 
 
 16.19 
 
 1902 
 
 0.55 
 
 1.30 
 
 .45 
 
 2.00 
 
 4.00 
 
 6.00 
 
 3.60 
 
 0.70 
 
 0.40 
 
 T 
 
 0.65 
 
 1.30 
 
 20.95 
 
 1903 
 
 0.47 
 
 1.30 
 
 0.55 
 
 2.90 
 
 4.70 
 
 1.75 
 
 5.60 
 
 0.75 
 
 o 40 
 
 0.25 
 
 0.70 
 
 0.70 
 
 22.09 
 
 1904 
 
 0.92 
 
 1.15 
 
 1.90 
 
 1.65 
 
 2.10 
 
 0.50 
 
 3.45 
 
 0.60 
 
 0.20 
 
 T 
 
 0.05 
 
 1.00 1 13.52 
 
 19ii5 
 
 0.40 
 
 1.00 
 
 0.55 
 
 1.10 
 
 2.15 
 
 4.50 
 
 1.20 
 
 0.80 
 
 1.20 
 
 0.75 
 
 0.70 
 
 0.00 
 
 14.35 
 
 1906 
 
 0.50 
 
 0.60 
 
 0.80 
 
 0.10 
 
 3.78 
 
 5. 47 
 
 2.00 
 
 0.60 
 
 2.10 
 
 0.95 
 
 0.89 
 
 1.31 
 
 19.10 
 
 1907 
 
 1.88 
 
 0.47 
 
 0.92 
 
 0.45 
 
 2.25 
 
 3.90 
 
 2.14 
 
 3.24 
 
 0.75 
 
 0.26 
 
 T 
 
 0.25 
 
 16.51 
 
 1908 
 
 0.49 
 
 1.55 
 
 2.10 
 
 0.34 
 
 4.09 
 
 4.00 
 
 0.04 
 
 1.04 
 
 2.00 
 
 5.80 
 
 0.25 
 
 0.40 
 
 22.10 
 
 1909 
 
 1.25 
 
 0.10 
 
 1.27 
 
 1.19 
 
 2.50 
 
 1.86 
 
 4.20 
 
 2.73 
 
 4.24 
 
 0.49 
 
 0.91 
 
 1.21 
 
 24.94 
 
 1910 
 
 1.40 
 
 0.91 
 
 0.25 
 
 1.73 
 
 2.26 
 
 U.l> 
 
 2.20 
 
 0.81 
 
 3.03 
 
 1.05 
 
 0.98 
 
 0.50 
 
 17.40 
 
 1911 
 
 1.54 
 
 0.46 
 
 0.67 
 
 1.64 
 
 5. is 
 
 3.12 
 
 1.75 
 
 4.15 
 
 1.81 
 
 1.96 
 
 1.32 
 
 0.57 
 
 24.17 
 
 1912 
 
 1.18 
 
 0.05 
 
 0.56 
 
 2.23 
 
 4.27 
 
 IP.SU 
 
 4.12 
 
 1.16 
 
 1.93 
 
 2.03 
 
 0.04 
 
 0.41 
 
 18.78 
 
 1913 
 
 1.31 
 
 0.31 
 
 0.27 
 
 0.69 
 
 2.26 
 
 6.33 
 
 1.66 
 
 1.12 
 
 1.88 
 
 1.82 
 
 0.69 
 
 0.36 
 
 IS. 70 
 
 1914 
 
 0.32 
 
 0.04 
 
 1.26 
 
 0.17 
 
 3.20 
 
 5.57 
 
 .53 
 
 1.19 
 
 1.92 
 
 1.33 
 
 0.47 
 
 0.22 
 
 16.22 
 
 1915 
 
 1 0.65 
 
 0.02 
 
 1.61 
 
 1.31 
 
 3.70 
 
 5.47 
 
 3.93 
 
 1.7s 
 
 1.66 
 
 1.11 
 
 0.85 
 
 0.80 
 
 22.89 
 
 1916 
 
 1 0.80 
 
 0.51 
 
 0.91 
 
 1.80 
 
 2.4:5 
 
 4.15 
 
 2.39 
 
 0.70 
 
 1.76 
 
 1.34 
 
 0.78 
 
 1.47 
 
 19.04 
 
 1917 
 
 1.87 
 
 1.30 
 
 0.85 
 
 1.18 
 
 2.79 
 
 1.81 
 
 0.96 
 
 0.75 
 
 2.91 
 
 0.62 
 
 0.09 
 
 2.56 
 
 17.69 
 
 1918 
 
 2.34 
 
 0.87 
 
 0.38 
 
 0.18 
 
 3.32 
 
 1.68 
 
 2. ms 
 
 3.14 
 
 1.28 
 
 1.76 
 
 0.52 
 
 0.16 
 
 17.71 
 
 T. Mean 
 
 [ 0.99 
 
 0.75 
 
 1.13 
 
 1.34 
 
 3.21 
 
 3.55 
 
 2.37 
 
 1.49 
 
 1.86 
 
 1.28 
 
 0.81 
 
 0.83 | 19.58 
 
 UTICA— 
 
 
 C* 
 
 £ 
 
 - 
 
 
 ft 
 
 
 4) 
 
 C 
 
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 3 
 
 ft 
 
 
 > 
 
 
 
 
 
 01 
 
 
 
 
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 fc 
 
 2 
 
 < 
 
 a 
 
 •-5 
 
 •-» 
 
 < 
 
 xn 
 
 
 
 z 
 
 p 
 
 b 
 
 1894 
 
 
 
 
 
 1.6S 
 
 4.46 
 
 0.30 
 
 0.86 
 
 1.32 
 
 1.34 
 
 0.48 
 
 0.44 
 
 
 1895 
 
 
 0.20 
 
 0.15 
 
 0.75 
 
 0.39 
 
 3.76 
 
 1.31 
 
 0.00 
 
 0.45 
 
 0.00 
 
 0.80 
 
 0.52 
 
 .... 
 
 1896 
 
 0.80 
 
 0.30 
 
 1.02 
 
 0.20 
 
 3.06 
 
 2.35 
 
 3.42 
 
 1.93 
 
 2.38 
 
 0.66 
 
 4.67 
 
 0.00 
 
 20.68 
 
 1-07 
 
 0.30 
 
 0.46 
 
 o.Tl 
 
 O.S7 
 
 1.33 
 
 3.98 
 
 1.74 
 
 0.30 
 
 0.15 
 
 2.36 
 
 1.68 
 
 0.80 
 
 14.68 
 
 Wis 
 
 0.70 
 
 
 1.91 
 
 1.12 
 
 5.87 
 
 5. SO 
 
 3.16 
 
 0.67 
 
 0.47 
 
 1.25 
 
 1.14 
 
 0.43 
 
 22.79 
 
 1899 
 
 1.69 
 
 0.38 
 
 0.92 
 
 2.29 
 
 3.33 
 
 1.22 
 
 ..57 
 
 1.31 
 
 0.28 
 
 1.15 
 
 0.11 
 
 0.88 
 
 16.13 
 
 1900 
 
 0.45 
 
 0.35 
 
 0.21 
 
 2.86 
 
 1.04 
 
 0.44 
 
 0.70 
 
 2.20 
 
 0.S2 
 
 0.86 
 
 0.29 
 
 0.21 
 
 10.42 
 
 1901 
 
 0.40 
 
 0.20 
 
 0.57 
 
 1.65 
 
 3.82 
 
 3.97 
 
 1.97 
 
 0.90 
 
 2.42 
 
 1.39 
 
 T 
 
 3.22 
 
 20.51 
 
 1902 
 
 0.14 
 
 
 0.45 
 
 1.12 
 
 1.11 
 
 3.28 
 
 1.84 
 
 oj',7 
 
 0.32 
 
 0.1s 
 
 2.04 
 
 0.25 
 
 11.94 
 
 1903 
 
 0.50 
 
 0.24 
 
 1.11 
 
 2.29 
 
 l.S'J 
 
 2.81 
 
 2.57 
 
 0.81 
 
 2.42 
 
 0.05 
 
 0.44 
 
 0.65 
 
 15.71 
 
 1904 
 
 0.18 
 
 0.22 
 
 o.T'.' 
 
 1.11 
 
 1 .94 
 
 1.73 
 
 3.26 
 
 0.42 
 
 0.12 
 
 0.54 
 
 0.50 
 
 0.24 
 
 11.07 
 
 1906 
 
 0.19 
 
 0.16 
 
 
 0.75 
 
 L97 
 
 2.SJ 
 
 
 0.27 
 
 0.83 
 
 0.39 
 
 0.50 
 
 T 
 
 11.69 
 
 1906 
 
 0.55 
 
 0.68 
 
 0.43 
 
 0.16 
 
 2.61 
 
 2.66 
 
 0.93 
 
 2.00 
 
 0.00 
 
 0.70 
 
 0.42 
 
 0.68 
 
 12.76 
 
 1907 
 
 1.34 
 
 0.08 
 
 0.61 
 
 0.43 
 
 8.21 
 
 6.75 
 
 3.51 
 
 1.47 
 
 0.73 
 
 0.20 
 
 T 
 
 T 
 
 1S.33 
 
 1906 
 
 0.55 
 
 0.49 
 
 
 0.61 
 
 7.31 
 
 2. 15 
 
 0.20 
 
 lis 
 
 1.11 
 
 6.27 
 
 T 
 
 0.22 
 
 21.07 
 
 1909 
 
 0.90 
 
 0.08 
 
 1.22 
 
 O.05 
 
 LSI 
 
 
 4.97 
 
 1.28 
 
 1.27 
 
 0.49 
 
 0.80 
 
 L20 
 
 24.16 
 
 1910 
 
 l 20 
 
 1.18 
 
 0.00 
 
 1.32 
 
 8. 16 
 
 i 99 
 
 1.2:: 
 
 0.67 
 
 2.17 
 
 1.43 
 
 0.73 
 
 0.31 
 
 15.99 
 
 1911 
 
 0.62 
 
 0.H 
 
 O.S1 
 
 0.92 
 
 I 06 
 
 6.17 
 
 1.12 
 
 
 1.02 
 
 1.10 
 
 
 
 -I 60 
 
 1912 
 
 
 
 1.16 
 
 1.27 
 
 3.94 
 
 2.16 
 
 1.27 
 
 1.67 
 
 L64 
 
 -1 .-v 
 
 0.15 
 
 0.28 
 
 16.69 
 
 1913 
 
 i . 16 
 
 0.86 
 
 
 2.00 
 
 2.7s 
 
 1 64 
 
 2.14 
 
 0.5:1 
 
 1.18 
 
 2.50 
 
 1.60 
 
 26 
 
 19 01 
 
 Kilt 
 
 81 
 
 o.:'.r, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 o.:m; 
 
 0.90 
 
 0.20 
 
 0.23 
 
 14.51 
 
 
 L02 
 
 T 
 
 
 1.27 
 
 I 67 
 
 
 5.21 
 
 2.25 
 
 2 ,1 
 
 o.52 
 
 
 0.28 
 
 21.7S 
 
 1916 
 
 
 1 01 
 
 
 1.1.". 
 
 
 ::.7s 
 
 1 >.i 
 
 1 ::i 
 
 1.07 
 
 1.08 
 
 0.37 
 
 Lffi 
 
 17.02 
 
 1917 
 
 
 0.86 
 
 • 
 
 1 .',7 
 
 
 i 66 
 
 0.81 
 
 0.17 
 
 2.21 
 
 0.78 
 
 T 
 
 
 13.27 
 
 
 1 06 
 
 o.::'; 
 
 -1 
 
 0.71 
 
 2.86 
 
 
 
 0.93 
 1.21 
 
 :■ 00 
 
 1.10 
 
 
 .18 
 
 
 T M'.-an 
 
 0.68 
 
 • 
 
 
 1.17 
 
 
 1 is 
 
 0.72 
 
 
 16.46 
 
 M<>| 'A SIX 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 d 
 
 a 
 
 .0 
 
 c 
 
 ■P. 
 
 C 
 
 ft 
 < 
 
 1 >. 
 1.34 
 
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 3 
 
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 V) 
 
 3 
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 Hi 
 
 J 
 
 y 
 
 O 
 
 > 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 P 
 
 3 
 
 
 1909 
 
 
 
 1.22 
 
 
 
 
 
 1.21 
 
 
 1910 
 
 
 .71 
 
 .10 
 
 LSI 
 
 2 1" 
 
 
 1 in 
 
 2.02 
 
 
 
 1.26 
 
 .48 
 
 
 1011 
 
 
 
 
 1.66 
 
 
 
 
 
 1.87 
 
 1.94 
 
 
 .68 
 
 
 1912 
 
 .88 
 
 
 -1 
 
 1 18 
 
 
 64 
 
 1 92 
 
 1.27 
 
 
 
 .11 
 
 .0.; 
 
 
 
 
 
 .20 
 
 
 
 
 1.12 
 
 
 l.ol 
 
 I ■■:: 
 
 
 
 14.96 
 
 1914 
 
 
 L.86 
 
 1.12 
 
 1.19 
 
 
 1 64 
 
 64 
 
 
 l.ll 
 
 
 
 .:■! 
 
 1:. 67 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 18 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 L01 
 
 
 
 
 ■■ T 1 
 
 1.22 
 
 
 1.20 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 SI 
 
 1 00 
 
 1.1 
 
 
 
 1917 
 
 1.87 
 
 
 
 LIS 
 
 
 I -1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 n 11 
 1.19 
 
 
 
 
 lis 
 Ml 
 
 1.26 
 
 1 in 
 
 
 0.16 
 
 
 T. lit 
 
 
 1.11 
 
 

 
 — 54 — 
 
 Ground Water. 
 
 The depth at which ground water occurs depends on the amount of 
 rainfall, rate of evaporation, character of surface, character of soil, sub- 
 soil, and bedrock. There are some parts of Fergus County where it is 
 difficult to obtain sufficient amounts of pure, potable water. This is 
 especially true where the thick black Colorado and Bearpaw shales outcrop. 
 The shale is too dense for water to sink through, with the result that no 
 
 water can be obtained except when beds of sandstone are struck and even 
 then the water is frequently alkaline and unfit to use. 
 
 The bench gravels of the Judith Basin are underlain by clay or shale 
 through which water will not sink and hence pure water can usually be 
 obtained by digging shallow wells. The Kootenai, Jurassic and upper Car- 
 boniferous sandstones are usually thoroughly water soaked and wherever 
 these can be reached with the drill a large water supply can be tapped whose 
 quality is usually good. Springs are very common where these sandstones 
 outcrop. The Big Springs, six miles from Lewistown, which supply the 
 city with water, gush from the Jurassic sandstone in a downfold of the 
 rocks, or syncline, that extends from the Snowy Mountains to the springs. 
 Warm Spring, between the North and South Moccasin Mountains, also 
 emerges from Jurassic sandstone. Many of the springs from the Kootenai 
 sand contains small amounts of iron which causes the water to have an 
 iredescence resembling an oil seep. 
 
 Many streams of good water wend their way across the plains from 
 all of the mountain groups. Within the mountains the streams usually 
 flow underground in the canyons where they cross the outcrop of the mas- 
 sive Madison limestone except in times of flood. The water reappears in 
 the beds of the streams some distance from the mountains. During the 
 dry season many small streams in the county cease to flow and often water 
 only occurs in pools along their course. This may sometimes be alkaline 
 or polluted by stock and yet be the chief source of water supply for several 
 miles. North of Hilger and Roy and east of Grass Range and Roy water 
 is often quite difficult to obtain, and when struck may contain too much 
 gypsum and alkali for use except for stock. To obtain water for stock it 
 may be necessary to dam up a coulee to retain snow and rain water. The 
 pond can usually be made water tight by the tramping of the mud bottom 
 by the stock but the pond will not hold water if the dain is built on very 
 porous soil or rock. In case the soil is porous the sod above the dam should 
 be left as it makes the pond tighter. If a well is dug below the pond, better 
 water for household use can be secured, as impurities in the water will be 
 filtered out by the soil as the water sinks down to the well. Ice is some- 
 times gathered and supplies soft drinking water in the summer when it 
 melts, as the alkali in the water is excluded when the ice forms. 
 
 No simple laboratory test can determine whether water is safe to use 
 for domestic purposes as the water may affect individuals differently. 
 The same is true regarding irrigation water. Water heavily impregnated 
 with alkali can be used safely on porous soil, while if the same water is 
 applied to a heavy clay or gumbo soil the water cannot drain away and 
 the soil will quickly become so impregnated with alkali that crops will not 
 grow. Heavy clay soils often contain an excess of alkali at a shallow depth 
 and if flooded carelessly with even fresh water the water will dissolve the 
 alkali in the ground and when it rises by capillarity to the surface and
 
 — 55 — 
 
 evaporates the alkali will be left and the soil may be severely damaged. 
 Proper drainage will remedy this condition. 
 
 Considerable land is irrigated in Fergus County chiefly for hay crops, 
 as alfalfa. In 1907, there were 22,700 acres irrigated in the Judith River 
 section, 8,800 acres getting water directly from the Judith, 4,650 acres 
 from Warm Spring Creek and 2,900 from Big Spring Creek. Flood waters 
 could be stored on many of the tributaries of the Judith in the foothills. 
 There are good power sites available on the Judith River below its junc- 
 tion with Big Spring Creek. In Eastern Fergus County there are consid- 
 erable areas along Flatwillow and Box Elder Creeks that are irrigated. 
 A large territory north of Winnett will be irrigated from the recently com- 
 pleted ditch of the Winnett Irrigation Co. This gets its water by storing 
 flood waters. The Flatwillow project, south of Winnett, will irrigate 
 25,000 acres of land ultimately. It will utilize the flood flow of Flat- 
 willow Creek, the direct flow being used already on alfalfa land. 
 
 Grain growing in Fergus County is greatly helped by the usually favor- 
 able distribution of rain during the growing season. In order to insure 
 the best results, especially in the occasional dry years, it is necessary to 
 practice proper methods of cultivation and croping. When properly car- 
 ried on these will conserve the fertility of the soil as well as its water 
 content, and it is well known that more fertile the soil the less the amount 
 of water required by growing crops. 
 
 Artesian water can be obtained in many parts of the country by drilling 
 wells down to water-soaked sandstone. A vein of water is simply a porous 
 rock filled with water. If the source of the water is at a higher level than 
 the mouth of the well the water will flow over the top of the well. The 
 most favorable places to drill artesian wells are in synclines (down folds 
 of the rocks) and in places where the rocks dip way from the mountains. 
 A good flowing well of soft water has been drilled in the brickyard at 
 Lewistown where there is a small structural basin. A strong flow of 
 water was struck a mile north of Piper in a well drilled for oil. There 
 is a good artesian well at Fullerton, on the Judith River, and several 
 others in other parts of the county. Deep drilling is expensive, but if 
 the Kootenai and Jurassic sandstones can be reached pure soft water will 
 be found. The Kootenai sandstone is probably less than 2,000 feet below 
 the surface at Winnett and an abundant supply of soft water can be ob- 
 tained by drilling deep enough to reach it. The water in the thin sand- 
 stones at the base of the Colorado shale is often rather alkaline.
 
 —56— 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The Soil of Fergus County and Its Influence on Agriculture. 
 
 Soils result from the disintegration and decomposition of rocks modified 
 by organic remains. Soils may be residual or transported. If they are 
 residual their character is determined by that of the bedrock. If they 
 have been transported their source has been from many diverse kinds of 
 rocks and they are more apt to contain all kinds of plant food in an avail- 
 able form. 
 
 All good soils should contain nitrogen, potash and phosporus in a 
 soluable form and should be in a good physical condition for the success- 
 ful growing of crops. Those interested in a complete discussion on soils 
 are referred to any textbook on the subject, as in this chapter we shall 
 consider only the chief types of soils in Fergus County and their influence 
 on agriculture. 
 
 Residual soils found here include those formed from sandstone, shale, 
 limestone, porphyry and other igneous rocks, and mixtures of them. Their 
 character thus depends on that of the bedrock 
 
 There are no great areas of sandy soil in Fergus County. The sand- 
 stone beds are usually relatively thin and the sandy soils are usually mixed 
 with clay. Sandy soils absorb rain water easily but lose it rather quickly 
 by evaporation and are quite susceptible to damage from blowing by the 
 wind. Sandy soils permit ground water to leach out much of the soluble 
 salts valuable for plant food. 
 
 Therefore sandy soils are never alkaline and are usually less fertile 
 than less porous soils. However, they are easy to work and can be plowed 
 earlier in the spring than heavy soils. A certain amount of sand is de- 
 sirable in the soil as it helps to put it in a good physical condition, so that 
 plants can utilize whatever fertilizing elements are present. 
 
 Soils formed from the decay of limestone may lack certain elements, 
 especially nitrogen, but if the limestone is impure the soils are among the 
 richest and best that occur. The Jurassic and Quadrant formations con- 
 tain shaly limestone that makes good soil on which fine grass and hay 
 grows, as on Alaska Bench. The travertine on McDonald Creek Divide and 
 the "Park" plateau, south of the North Moccasins, makes a very fertile 
 soil, but one which is sometimes thin and stony. The early Carbonifer- 
 ous rocks contain much limestone, but outcrop too far up in the mountains 
 for crops to be grown, but often support a splendid growth of grass valu- 
 able for pasture, as around Half Moon Pass, in the Snowies. Where the 
 Madison limestone dips steeply the broken rock is washed or blown off 
 and the soil is thin or absent, but if the dips of the rock are gentle, a very 
 rich soil has resulted. Due to the high altitude this limy soil is mainly 
 devoted to grazing land and timothy hay. The soil is black from its 
 high humus content and with the abundant rains in the foothills, makes 
 about the best natural hay and pasture land in the county. Narrow bottom 
 lands near the mountains on the creeks flowing from the Belts and Snowies 
 make unexcelled soil due to the fact that they are largely formed by the 
 erosion of the decayed portion of the mountain limestone. Lime prevents 
 an acid condition of the soil. Limestone usually contains potash and 
 phosphorus which is liberated for plant use by its decay. The bench 
 gravels of the Judith Basin contain a very large proportion of limestone 
 transported there from the mountains by running water. No finer grain 
 lands exist in the world than these limy gravels. Their only defect is that
 
 — 57 — 
 
 their nitrogen content is consumed by straight grain growing. Rotation 
 of crops, and the keeping of stock will help maintain their fertility. 
 
 The soil formed from shale is a heavy clay, very sticky when wet. 
 It holds water well but does not allow it to soak in rapidly. The black 
 Colorado, Bearpaw and Claggett shales often form extensive gumbo flats. 
 They are covered with sagebrush rather than grass. Usually in Fergus 
 County the presence of sagebrush instead of grass indicates an inferior 
 soil. Gumbo soil is impossible to work when thoroughly wet and does 
 not dry out as soon as sand or loam, so cannot be worked as earily in 
 the spring. Heavy clay and gumbo contain abundant mineral salts, since 
 ground water cannot readily leach them out, but they often lack humus 
 and therefore are not in the best physical condition. Plowing under straw 
 and green manure crops might help put them in better physical condition. 
 There is often an excess of alkali in gumbo soil as the ground water dis- 
 solves the alkali and brings it to the surface by capillarity, where it is left 
 when the water evaporates. The white crusts of alkali are chiefly com- 
 mon salt and glauber salt (sodium sulphate). Sodium carbonate reacts 
 with the humus and forms black alkali which is the most harmful form as 
 a small quantity will kill growing plants, and it also puddles the soil. 
 Gypsum added to soil containing black alkali changes it to the relatively 
 harmless sulphate. If heavy soils, especially with tight subsoils, are irri- 
 gated great damage is sometimes done as the water dissolves alkali from 
 the ground and concentrates it at the surface where it kills the plants. 
 Thorough drainage and less frequent irrigation benefit such soils. Surface 
 mulching and the planting of alkali resistant crops are also beneficial. 
 As before mentioned, gumbo soils contain plenty of planty food, but are 
 sometimes in such poor physical condition that plants cannot grow well. 
 Excellent crops of grain are frequently raised on gumbo soil but crop 
 production is not considered so certain as on the bench gravel and loam 
 soil. Alfalfa and other hay crops often do well on heavy clay soils. 
 
 True loam covers considerable areas in Fergus County. It generally 
 results when the bedrock is Impure shale and shale interbedded with thin 
 sandstone and limestone strata. These conditions are true of much of 
 the Jurassic, Quadrant, Kootenai, Eagle and Judith River formations and 
 hence good loam soils usually are formed where they outcrop. Both fine 
 and coarse materials unite to form Loan which gives it the advantages 
 possessed by both heavy clay and sandy soils without the disadvantages 
 of either. Loam usual; contains more humus than most other soils. 
 
 River deposited sills make up the soils of the Hal bottom lands along 
 the chief streams in the county. All kinds of crops are grown on them, 
 especially alfalfa and timothy. 
 
 Igneous rocks contain m\.i.iI minerals and their decay usually m; 
 good soil. However, in Fergus County nearly all the the Igneous rocks 
 occur in the mountains, and no extensive soil areas that can be used for 
 (arming have resulted where such rocks outcrop 
 
 Glaciers have not appreciably affected the soils in any pari of Fergus 
 
 County. Thousands of years ; lacier come Horn Canada and crossed 
 
 the Missouri in Northeastern Fergus County Only a i.w hard rounded 
 
 boulders of rock, entirely different from an] bedrock in .Montana, remain 
 
 scattered sparingly over the surfa<e as evidence of the presence of the 
 glacier in the past. Glaciers affected considerably th< In many pi 
 
 of Montana hut were ,,f u.. Importance here They never wrere found In 
 
 our mountains or in the Judith liasin In general, the soil Ol the Judith
 
 — 58— 
 
 Basin contain more potash, phosphates and nitrates than is usual in eastern 
 soils as the rainfall is not enough to leach them out so completely. 
 
 There is usually less difference between the sub-soil and surface soil 
 of the arid and semi-arid lands of the west than in regions of heavier rain- 
 fall especially as regards the content of nitrogen in the form of humus. 
 The soils of many parts of Fergus County are deeper than the average 
 eastern soil, but much of the soil on the benches in the Basin varies from 
 a few inches to a few feet in depth and is underlain by a limestone gravel 
 that in places is so firmly cemented together with lime as to be impervious 
 to water. The nitrogen content of these bench gravel soils decreases con- 
 sidrably after the first foot in depth. Steady cropping of grain, especially 
 where burning of the straw is practiced, rapidly exhausts the humus in the 
 soil and the crops suffer for lack of nitrogen. The use of a header and 
 combine is desirable as it permits the return of most of the straw to the 
 soil, which is an advantage unless the straw is so heavy that it cannot 
 readily be plowed under the ground. Fresh or coarse organic matter like 
 unrotted manure and long straw loosens the soil and frequently injuries it 
 and the nitrogen content of such materials is not available until humified. 
 Experience shows that summer fallow pays in Fergus County except in 
 the foothills and very porous limestone gravel soils, but a dust mulch on 
 light soil promotes blowing by the wind and is undesirable. In Fergus 
 County the best soil amendments would seem to be barnyard manure, green 
 manure crops, and crops rotations with consequent plowing under of al- 
 falsa and other legumenous crops. It should be mentioned, however, that 
 agriculture has been practiced too short a time in Fergus County to exhaust 
 the plant food in the soil, and at the Moccasin Experiment Station they 
 have yet to learn of a profitable return from the application of barnyard 
 manure or of green manure. Continuous grain growing will ultimately 
 exhaust the fertility of our soils, just as has happened in the Illinois 
 prairies and the Red River Valley. The leguminous plants constitute the 
 cheapest form of renewing the nitrogen content of the soil. Alfalfa prob- 
 ably is the best crop where it can be grown. It does well on any soil ex- 
 cept those that are too high and dry or are water soaked. Alfalfa is even 
 quite alkali resisting once it has reached maturity. In Eastern Fergus 
 County corn and field peas do well together as the corn exhausts nitrogen 
 from the soil and the peas return it. . 
 
 Commercial fertilizers are rarely needed and it is doubtful if it will pay 
 to add it to soil used for grain farming. The keeping of livestock in con- 
 nection with grain farming and the resultant return to the soil of as 
 much of the valuable fertilizers as possible cannot be too strongly rec- 
 ommended. Intelligent farmers maintain the content of minerals in the 
 soil required for plant growth at a high figure.
 
 — 59 — 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Geographic Influences in Fergus County. 
 
 The early history and development of Fergus County has been consid- 
 erably influenced by the geography and geology of the region. 
 
 The early explorers of Montana, De La Verendrye, a French Canadian, 
 and Lewis and Clark kept to the Missouri River Valley, as they used boats 
 for their journey. Cabins were later built at suitable places by trappers, 
 wolfers, and wood cutters who supplied steamboats with fuel. Trading 
 posts were built at the mouth of the Musselshell and Judith Rivers, but 
 trouble with Indians and the broken character of the surrounding "bad- 
 lands" caused them to be abandoned. When low water prevented steam- 
 boats from reaching Fort Benton cargoes were landed at Cow Island 
 and hauled across the Judith Basin to Helena. The long grass of the 
 Judith Basin caused many teamsters to winter their bull teams in Fergus 
 County before the seventies. ' 
 
 By 1880 several hardy pioneer stockmen had driven herds of sheep 
 and cattle in the Basin, and miners had located metal deposits in the 
 mountains, and Fergus County continued to be chiefly devoted to stock- 
 raising and mining for the next 25 years. The stockmen settled where 
 there was living water, i. e. springs or running streams, for their herds. 
 The native grass in the Basin was long and often reached a horse's belly. 
 The usually mild winters obviated the necessity of providing much hay or 
 shelter for the stock. Oats and hay were principally raised on the valley 
 flats and were very often irrigated. General farming was thought practical 
 only in the foothills. There was more than a 100-mile drive to the railroad 
 from most parts of the county, which fact prevented the export of bulky 
 products, such as wheat. The hoofs of sheep and cattle sufficed to carry 
 them to the railroad, and wool was very valuable for its weight; so the 
 expense of hauling it was relatively small. Hence the chief exports were 
 fat beef cattle, sheep, lambs, wool, gold, some horses, and hides. Some 
 of the chief difficulties faced by the stockmen were occasional blizzards, 
 , and severe winter that froze and starved their stock to death. Some- 
 times dry summers caused a shortage of feed and water, but this was less 
 common than in most of Eastern Montana. Stock "rustling" was not a 
 great drawback, as the "rustlers" usually had few chances to repeat their 
 offences. The homes of the stockmen, located beside streams or springs 
 lor the sake of the stock, were often situated in a broken country which 
 provided better shelter from storms than the level benches. Land along 
 the Btreanis was early homestead, or secured by desert entries, Bince hay 
 was usually grown on the bottoms, while the owner controlled the water 
 
 for his stock. The first land taken up in Eastern and Northern Fergus 
 
 county was often "badlands," which contained springs, giving the owners 
 
 virtual Control over many sections of free gracing land Land could DC 
 taken up as homesteads, desert claims, tree Claims, under timber and 
 
 stone act, by buying from the state and the Northern Pacific Railway, and 
 
 by Soldier's Additional and other kinds of BCrip. There was so much land 
 thai the land laws were often laxly enforced, with the reSUll that many 
 far-Sighted men secured thousands of acr< al B very nominal cost. The 
 first stores, saloons, stage stations, ami trading posts were built at con- 
 venient camping sites or close to mines and large stock ranches, where
 
 —60— 
 
 customers would be easiest to secure, as Utica, Lewistown, Grass Range, 
 Maiden and Tyler. 
 
 The old trails were located in the easiest and shortest practical course 
 between towns. Later the distance between towns was often lengthened 
 when roads were shifted to section lines. An old Indian trail through the 
 Basin led through Beaver Creek Gap, this was followed by the stage road 
 south and finally by the railroad, as it was the lowest path across the hills 
 and Beaver and Cottonwood Creeks to Lewistown. After the railroads 
 came, grain growing began to be the great industry of the county and 
 many small towns sprang up at convenient distances along the railroads 
 as grain shipping points and supply centers. Some of the old towns and 
 stage stations were abandoned in favor of a location on the railroad, as 
 Philbrook for Hobson and as old Stanford and Garneill for their present 
 sites. Lewistown had the advantage of an early start and central location. 
 Its citizens were progressive and possessed initiative and hence the city 
 has maintined and even increased its relative importance in the county. 
 
 The past geological history of Central Montana has determined the 
 location of gold, coal, limestone and sapphire deposits and half a dozen 
 towns resulted from the location of the mines, as Maiden, Kendall, Gilt 
 Edge, Hanover, Lehigh and Yogo. The decomposition of the rocks sup- 
 plies the needed fertilizers in the soil and the presence of the mountains 
 helps increase the amount of rainfall. It was thought impossible to raise 
 crops without irrigation in Fergus County in the early days, and this 
 erroneous idea delayed farming operations. The lack of experience in dry 
 land farming and the great distance to the railroads prevented any con- 
 siderable agricultural development until about 1904 and 1905 when the 
 completion of the Montana Railroad enabled the farmers to ship their 
 wheat. When it was demonstrated that wheat could be grown in the Judith 
 Basin without irrigation thousand of homesteaders came into the county. 
 The Judith Basin cattle ranches were replaced by wheat farms and new 
 towns sprang into existence. The availability of the land for grain grow- 
 ing has caused the Milwaukee to build lines to Great Falls, Winifred, Roy 
 and Winnett, and is the determining factor in the Great Northern ex- 
 tensions east, but the Great Northern will also shorten its main line con- 
 siderably by this new route. Grain growing was unprofitable until rail- 
 road construction provided a market. 
 
 Manufacturing could not succeed until then, either. Manufacturing is 
 small and consists of cement, gypsum, brick, flour, butter, etc., all prod- 
 ucts made from raw materials that are close at hand and for which a local 
 market is available. The railroads have resulted in thousand of home- 
 steads being taken up throughout Fergus County as a market was provided 
 for the agricultural products. The increase in homesteads has gradually 
 eliminated most of the free range and the large stock ranches appear 
 to be nearly a thing of the past. In 15 years the greater part of Fergus 
 County has been homesteaded, dozens of postoffices and over a score of 
 good towns and cities have been started. The railroads have made this 
 rapid development possible. Without railroads there might have been a 
 limited export of wool and grain by the Missouri River steamboats and the 
 chief wagon roads would run to boat landings on the Missouri; but the 
 railroads caused as much development in Fergus County, in a decade, as 
 would have resulted in a century without them. 
 
 Fergus County is in the geographic center of the state. In the early 
 days we were off the main railroad routes to the north and south and were
 
 -61- 
 
 at a disadvantage. With the network of roads built in Central Montana 
 in the last few years, however, this central location will have in increasingly 
 favorable influence on wholesaling, retailing and manufacturing in Lewis- 
 town and other Fergus County cities. The Missouri River and the 
 '"breaks" along it constitute a serious barrier for trade with the counties 
 rorth, ferrys furnishing the only means of crossing it. The Musselshell is 
 not a serious barrier, especially since the construction of a bridge across 
 it in 1918, and good roads north across the Missouri are being built. 
 
 There is considerable water power that can be cheaply utilized near 
 Lewistown, and in the future will be a favorable factor for influencing the 
 location of manufacturing plants. 
 
 The great distance from chief world markets will probably restrict 
 manufacturing in Montana to those things for which there is a local de- 
 mand and that can be made from raw materials locally available, especially 
 such things as do not require a large number of skilled operatives. 
 
 In agriculture we shall see fixed farming and dairying become of more 
 importance. When Fergus County's farms are fully developed several 
 times the present number of inhabitants can live comfortably here, and 
 the value of the grain, beef, hogs, and wool produced will be many times 
 that of the present output. 
 
 i 
 
 ■%U~t 1 1 I I I 
 
 ^^•npv-*- \ ■ 
 
 CKMKNT PLANT .VI HANOVER.
 
 —6 2— 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Origin of the Geographic Names in Fergus County. 
 
 Alaska Bench named from its winter climate. 
 
 Amherst, the railroad station, and Acushnet, the P. O. nearby, were 
 named for New England towns. 
 
 Armells P. O. established about 1913. Armells Creek was named at 
 an early date, probably by the trappers, and appears on the map of Mon- 
 tana in 1870. 
 
 Arrow Creek, town named from Arrow Creek, founded about 1913. 
 Creek named in days of freighters and was on map of Montana in 1870. 
 Arrow Creek Hill through the badlands was a famous landmark on the old 
 Fort Benton stage and freight road. Arrow Creek was named by an 
 Indian from its curving course. 
 
 Ashley, named for the rancher, Eben L. Ashley, who established a 
 P. O. there in 1915. 
 
 Bear Gulch, near Becket, named to commemorate a large bear killed 
 by McCauley there in the spring of the year. 
 
 Blacktail Gulch, near Becket, named for deer once found there. 
 
 Becket, founded in 1915. Named by railroad officials for no known 
 reason. 
 
 Beaver Creek still has many beaver dams along its course. Named by 
 the trappers. 
 
 Benchland, named from the character of the farming county nearby. 
 Founded late in 1907. 
 
 Big Snowy Mountains, named by the trappers from the heavy snow that 
 usually covers the mountains and often lasts until well into summer. 
 
 Black Butte was a landmark of the trappers and freighters and was 
 named in early days from its appearance, as viewed from Northern and 
 Eastern Fergus County. 
 
 Blakeslee P. O., named for C. E. Blakeslee, a rancher. Founded 
 about 1914. 
 
 Blood Creek was named by the trappers probably from the color of its 
 water. The name appears on a map of Montana in 1870. 
 
 Box Elder Creek, probably named from boxelders growing beside the 
 stream. On map of Montana in 1870, hence was named by the trappers. 
 
 Brooks, named after John and Henry Brooks, who were old-timers in 
 Fergus County. Henry Brooks managed the Horseshoe Bar Ranch for some 
 years, which is near present town of Brooks. Founded about 1913. 
 
 Buffalo, named from Buffalo Creek Valley that in turn was named after 
 the buffalo, common in the Basin until the late seventies. Town was 
 founded in 1907. 
 
 Carroll, named for Matt Carroll, an old-timer of Helena. It was a 
 well-known steamboat landing on the Missouri a short distance from the 
 present P. O. of Wilder. When the river was at a low stage steamboats 
 could not get to Benton and landed their cargoes at Carroll from which 
 point freighters hauled the goods across the Basin to Helena for distribu- 
 tion to the mines. Fort Hawley appears on the map of 1870, a few miles 
 east of Carroll, but nothing is known about it. 
 
 Casino Creek, in the seventies Peter Koch of Bozeman was in charge 
 of a party engaged in laying out the old Carroll Road. The weather was
 
 — 63 — 
 
 bad and they camped some time on one of the creeks and the men played 
 casino and named the creeks Little and Big Casino, from the game. 
 
 Casofour, name of U. S. Gypsum Company plant near Heath. Named 
 from chemical formula for gypsum, calcium sulphate (Ca S 04), the ca 
 standing for calcium, S for sulphur, and 04 the amount of oxygen present. 
 
 Cat Creek, a tributary to the Musselshell, appears on a map of 1870, 
 and was named by the trappers. 
 
 Cheadle, named after E. K. Cheadle, a lawyer of Lewistown. 
 Founded in 1915. 
 
 Chippewa Creek was named in 1879 by a military party searching for a 
 site for Fort Maginnis. The party was accompanied by Richard Doyle, 
 nicknamed "Chippewa." One evening when the party was in camp on 
 Chippewa Creek, Doyle saw a jack rabbit in silhouette against the evening 
 sky and made great haste to get his rifle in the mistaken belief that the 
 animal was an elk and the creek was jokingly named in his honor. 
 
 Christina, named after Christina Hilger, wife of David Hilger, a 
 pioneer rancher and banker in Fergus County. Founded late in 1913. 
 
 Coffee Creek, named from a creek of the same name. Founded about 
 1915. Creek was named because of the color of the water, which was 
 very dark from alkali. 
 
 Cone Butte appears on a map of 1870 and was named by the trappers 
 from its appearance. 
 
 Cottonwood Creek, named from occurrence of many cottonwoods along 
 the stream. Named by the trappers. 
 
 Cow Island is an old steamboat landing on the Missouri, northeast of 
 Winifred, near the present ferry across the river at the Ruby Gulch Mining 
 Company's power plant. 
 
 Crooked Creek was named by the trappers from its course through the 
 badlands. The name appears on the may of 1870. Lewis and Clark 
 named the stream Sacajawea Creek. Little Crooked P. O. named from 
 the creek. 
 
 Crystal Lake, name given because of clearness of water and beauty of 
 reflections of the mountains upon its surface. 
 
 Danvers, founded in 1913. Named Warwick first and name changed 
 to Danvers Blnce there was already one Warwick in the state. Name suk 
 gested by Mr. C. A. Goodenow of the Milwaukee Railway for a New England 
 town. 
 
 Deerfield, founded in 1889 or 1890, when the stage road was built from 
 Lewistown to Fort Benton. Named after a town in the Middle West by 
 E. A. Buson. 
 
 ixTiton, present town founded late in 1912. Denton was original^ 
 a stage station on the old LewistOWn-M'-ntnn lload on the ranch of Henry 
 s. Dent, and was started in the earl; eighties. 
 
 Dog Creek, named in the days of the trapper and la on the map <>f 
 Montana in 1870 as Dog River. 
 
 Dovetail Creeb end Dovetail Bntte were named by 1 1 1 « - trappers. i>ove- 
 taii Creek appears <>n map <>f L870. Dovetail P. O. named for the cre< 
 
 Everson, named from i:v<t's ranch thai was Located about L890, Posl 
 office started later. 
 
 Fergus Count; named after the pioneer, Jams i Pergua P <> 
 
 named after the William Pergu family, who e ranch li near Armelli
 
 —64— 
 
 Formerly P. O. was called Roy, later moved to near present site, when 
 the Peck ranch was sold on which Roy P. O. was located. 
 
 Flatwillow Creek was named from its sluggish current contrasted with 
 its chief tributary, called Willow Creek, probably from the trees beside it. 
 Both were named by the trappers and are on the map of Montana in 1870. 
 Flatwillow P. O. named from the creek. 
 
 Ford Creek is an old name, appears on land office maps of the 
 seventies. 
 
 Forestgrove, founded in early eighties. Named from Forestgrove ranch 
 of Tom Frost, probably named from a grove of cottonwoods on the 
 ranch. 
 
 Fort Maginnis, founded by the U. S. Government as a military post in 
 1880. Abandoned 1890. Postoffice still called by that name. Named 
 after Major Martin Maginnis, who was territorial delegate in Congress 
 for several years. 
 
 Garneill P. O., founded 1899. Named from Garnet Courier, later wife 
 of William Neill, a belle of the vicinity, who promised to marry William 
 Neill at the time the choice of a name for a new school district came up 
 and the residents chose a name to commemorate the circumstances. There 
 were two towns, a "dry" and a "wet" Garneill, about a half mile part. 
 When the Montana railroad was built in 1904, both the towns moved to 
 the present site and a new town, the third, was started. 
 
 Geraldine, in Chouteau County, named for Mrs. William Rockefeller, 
 mother of Percy Rockefeller, a large stockholder in the C, M. & St. P. 
 Railway. 
 
 Gerhard, named after N. J. Gerhard, a rancher. Founded about 1915. 
 
 Glengary was founded in 1907, and was named by Angus McMillan 
 after Glengary, Scotland, his native town. 
 
 Grass Range, established in 1881. Named from ranch country about 
 it. It was a stage station on the old Fort Maginnis and Junction City 
 Road. Named by Frank Chamberlain, the first owner of the ranch there. 
 
 Gilt Edge, founded in 1893. J. T. Armington and T. E. Collins de- 
 veloped the mines and built a cyanide mill. It was named after the Gilt 
 Edge Mining Company, which in turn was named after the Gilt Edge 
 claim, located by William Wilson in 1884. 
 
 Half Moon Pass, named from its shape. 
 
 Hanover, founded in 1916 because of gypsum mill built there. Named 
 after Hanover, Germany, where cement works are located. 
 
 Haystack Butte, in Northeastern Fergus County, named from shape by 
 freighters or trappers. Names appears on may of 1870. 
 
 Heath, named after Perry Heath, a rancher. Founded about 1912. 
 
 Highwood Mountains, named from timber formerly covering moun- 
 tains. Name appear on may of 1870 and was given to them by the 
 trappers. 
 
 Hilger, named after David Hilger of Lewistown, formerly a prominent 
 rancher of Northern Fergus County. Founded 1913. 
 
 Hobson, founded in 1907. Named after S. S. Hobson, once prominent 
 rancher and banker of Fergus County, now living in Great Falls. 
 
 Hoosac, named from the tunnel on the Milwaukee Railroad. Founded 
 in 1913. Named after Hoosac Tunnel of New England. 
 
 Houck Siding, named after J. C. Houck, a prominent rancher of the 
 Judith River country. 
 
 Jones, founded about 1908. Named after William Jones, a rancher.
 
 — 6 5 — 
 
 Judith River, named by Lewis and Clark in 1805, after Julia Hancock 
 of Virginia, later wife of Captain Clark. She was nicknamed Judith. The 
 name Judith Basin was applied to land in the vicinity of Judith River. 
 Judith Mountains, derived from vicinity of Judith Basin. Judith P. O. 
 established in 1885. An old fort was built near the mouth of the Judith 
 River in the forties and later in the sixties and seventies soldiers were 
 stationed here during periods of navigation on the Missouri, and the lo- 
 cation was called Camp Cooke. Camp Cooke was first military post in Mon- 
 tana, started 1866 when low water prevented soldiers reaching Fort Ben- 
 ton. Power's built Fort Claggett in 1871, but abandoned it later. The 
 place was called Claggett until about 1890. Named for William H. Clag- 
 gett, one of the early delegates in Congress from Montana. 
 
 Kachia, founded in 1915. A seed catalog was consulted to find a name 
 for the new postoffice, and Kochia was chosen, but was misread in the 
 department at Washington and the name came back Kachia. 
 
 Kelly was founded in 1916. Named for Harry Kelly, receiver of the 
 land office at Lewistown. 
 
 Kendall was started in 1898 after the discovery of gold there. Named 
 after the late Harry T. Kendall. 
 
 Kolin, founded in 1912. Named by Bohemian settlers in vicinity for a 
 town in Bohemia. 
 
 Lehigh, founded in 1915 as a coal mining town. Named after 
 Lehigh, Pa. 
 
 Lewistown, derived from Camp Lewis,' an old camping site at junction of 
 Big Casino and Sprink Creek, near brewery. Never visited by Captain Lewis. 
 Trading post built in 18 73 but moved about two miles down the creek in 
 1875. Another store built on present site of town in 1879. Reed's Fort 
 P. O. established in 1880. Present name adopted a few years thereafter 
 by F. A. Janeaux when he laid out the townsite of Lewistown on his 
 ranch. 
 
 Lindstrom P. O. established in 1913. Named after the rancher who 
 runs the store and P. O. 
 
 Little Belt Mountains is an old name. Probably named by the trappers 
 from the long stretch of the mountains along the skyline. Bell Butte, 
 near the city of Belt, was named for a thick bed of white volcanic ash that 
 crops out like a band around It. Bell Creek and the city of Bell wen 
 named from the stream and the mountains may ha\e I n named from tin- 
 creek that rises in them. Little Belt Mountains City appears on the map 
 of Montana in 1870, a few miles west of Carroll, but nothing could be 
 learneii of it. 
 
 Little Simwy Mountains, name was used by the trappers to designate 
 
 the rough, wooded country east and northeast Ol the Big Snowy .Mounl.-i 
 
 Maiden, founded In L880, when gold was dl d and there art 
 
 many different stories about the naming of the town. Frank D Finlaw, 
 of New Year, states thai a hand of Indians was camped below the mine 
 and the miners always talked of calling on "the dusky maidens," and the 
 town teas named from tins. Mrs. Connelly, however, wife of Jim Connolly, 
 
 an early miner in Maiden, was the first woman living there and the 
 
 camp was named for iter daughter Another version Is that it was named 
 after the daughter of a Mr. Sweeney, who was the first child born thi 
 
 Sweeney is said to have located in the mountain before 'lie mines were
 
 — 66— 
 
 found. William Culver, of Lewistown, the first photographer at Maiden, 
 states that the name was selected by Al Brundage, an old-timer. 
 
 McDonald Creek. On map of Montana in 1870, and was named for 
 llonry McDonald, a Canadian Scotchman, now living in New York. He 
 carried mail from Rocky Point to Helena and received $20 per day for it, 
 due to danger from the Indians. In the late sixties McDonald helped a 
 band of Crow Indians defeat a band of Sioux Indians on McDonald Creek 
 ?nd the creek was named to commemorate this. The Indians were fight- 
 ing over the possession of about 3,000 horses. He laid out several gov- 
 ernment roads, including one from Rocky Point to Helena. Later he set- 
 tled on Cottonwood, 60 miles from Lewistown, near Square Butte, and 
 later disposed of this place to Ole Osnes. 
 
 Merino, named from the high-grade sheep pastured nearby, and was 
 started about 1908. There was a stage station near the present site of 
 Harlowton named Merino in the eighties. 
 
 Moccasin, named from Moccasin Mountains, founded in 1907. There 
 was an old Moccasin P. O. and stage station below the Horseshoe Bar 
 ranch at the crossing of Warm Spring Creek by the Fort Benton Road. 
 Postoffice abandoned after the Montana Railroad was built, and name was 
 adopted for present town. 
 
 Moccasin Mountains were named perhaps from their general shape, 
 which resembles a moccasin. Named by the old trappers before the country 
 was settled. 
 
 Moore, named after a Philadelphia financier who helped finance the 
 Montana Railroad. Founded in 1904. 
 
 Musselshell River, named by Lewis and Clark from shells found in 
 the stream. 
 
 N. Bar Ranch was first started in 1880 by Linn and W. T. McFarland, 
 assistants to W. W. DeLacey, a surveyor, as a sheep ranch. The capital 
 was furnished by W. C. Childs, a Wells-Fargo agent, who later took 
 over the ranch, and it was called the Child ranch. Later it was bought by 
 Thomas Cruse and named the N. Bar and became one of the famous cattle 
 ranches of Montana. 
 
 Natal, founded about 1908. Probably named after the South African 
 country. 
 
 New Year, named from New Year mine, located by A. D. Harmon on 
 New Year's day in late eighties. 
 
 Novary, named after the Novary products of a wholesale company in 
 Lewistown. Founded as Wint about 1915. Name changed in 1917. 
 
 Pinegrove, named from pine forested hills about the postoffice. Found- 
 ed about 1900. 
 
 Philbrook, founded about 1881. Named by E. J. Morrison after the 
 maiden name of Mr. Morrison's mother. The first storekeeper at the Fort 
 Benton and White Sulphur Springs crossing of the Judith was J. L. Clegg, 
 who soon sold out to Morrison. Site abandoned in favor of Hobson, four 
 miles down the river, when the Great Northern was built in 1907. 
 
 Piper, named after Harley Piper, a rancher. P. O. started in 1916. 
 Plum Creek, named from a grove of wild plum trees P. O. estab- 
 lished a few years ago. 
 
 Pownal, named for a New England town.
 
 — 67 — 
 
 Rock Creek, name results from stony bed along part of its course. 
 
 Ross Fork, founded about 1912. Named after Ross Fork of Judith 
 River, which in turn was named in the days of the trapper, probably after 
 an old trapper. 
 
 Roy, founded in 1892 at the ranch of W. H. Peck, who aimed to call the 
 P. O. Ray, but due to a mistake at Washington, it was called Roy. Present 
 town of Roy is seven miles from the old Peck ranch, and was founded in 
 1913. Postoffice moved to about two miles of the present site, when Peck 
 ranch was sold and later moved when railroad was built. 
 
 Sacajawea Creek, named by Lewis and Clark after the Indian woman 
 guide, now called Crooked Creek. An attempt was made to change the 
 name by legislative action back to Sacajawea Creek during the Lewis and 
 Clark Exposition. The bill passed the house of representatives at Helena 
 but was killed in the senate when the sponsors of the bill were asked 
 lo pronounce the name and were unable to do so. 
 
 Sage Creek, named from sagebrush along it. 
 
 Sapphire, named after sapphire mines. Mines located by Jacob 
 Hoover, S. S. Hobson and Dr. J. A. Bovet about 1894. 
 
 Smith, founded about 1915. Named for Sam Smith, who owned the 
 ranch where the P. O. was established. 
 
 Square Butte, named from precipitous sides and square edge of the 
 mountain. Round Butte, between Square Butte and the Highwoods, named 
 from its shape. This is called Palisade Butte on the U. S. G. S. map. 
 
 Stanford, named from Old Stanford that was an old stage station and 
 cow town, founded about 1880. Present town founded in 1907, when the 
 Great Northern Railroad was built, and is located about two miles from 
 the old site. Another P. O. called Dubuque existed on the site of Old 
 Stanford on T. E. Morgan's ranch. Name was changed after Morgan 
 died and the Stanford P. O. was moved to the site of Dubuque. Stanford, 
 named from Stanford, N. Y., by the Bower Bros., who settled on Surprize 
 Creek in 1880. The first P. O. was on Baylis & Robley's ranch, later 
 owned by Col. T. A. Vial and at present by the Long Investment Co. 
 
 Straw was founded in 1904. Named after W. O. Straw of Bethel, 
 Maine, who formerly owned a ranch that included the site of the town. 
 Montana Railroad called a station Ada at the site of Straw until P. O. 
 was established. 
 
 Surprize Creek, named from the fact that when first found it flowed 
 across a prairie and could not be seen until one was close to it. 
 
 Suffolk, founded in 1914. Name chosen by C. A. Goodenow, assistant 
 to the president of the C, M. & St. P. Railroad, after a town in New 
 England. The first name chosen was Swope, after a pioneer, but this was 
 soon changed. 
 
 Teigfui. named after M. P. Teigen. Pounded In i!M4. 
 
 TWO Calf Creek, named in days of free range 
 
 Tyler, named after Charles Tyler, a rancher. Founded about 1900. 
 
 Ubet, founded about 1881 as a stage station, one and one-half milos 
 from Garneill. Named after following occurrence: A. R. Barrows and 
 wife set a good table and many stopped Over night. When Judge San 
 ders, a Republican, was campaigning for territorial delegate against Major 
 Martin Maginniss he stayed over night at the Harrows ranch and Bounded
 
 — 68— 
 
 Bome teamsters about their politics, but found they were all Democrats. 
 When asked if they would like to sample the contents of a brown jug 
 they exclaimed, "You Bet!" He replied, "You bet this is only for Repub- 
 licans." and drove off. A postoffice was soon after established and was 
 named from the Sanders incident, as Barrows wanted a short name for 
 the P. O. as he had had experience with towns with long names and he 
 knew they took a lot of time to write. 
 
 Utica, founded in 1879. Named from Utica, New York. Chosen by 
 Joe Culling, the first postmaster there. Culling was from Utica, New 
 York, and ran the first store there, which had been established by J. D. 
 Weatherwax, an old freighter. Mr. T. J. Waddell of Stanford states that 
 the postoffice was established March 5, 1881. 
 
 Valentine, founded about 1914. Named after Valentine Springs, 
 which was named by freighters and hunters, or by the first owner of the 
 property. 
 
 War House Lake, named by Walter Winnett from Indian war houses, 
 built in timbered by the shore of the lake. They were built of pitch pine 
 logs and Winnett used them in fencing his ranch. 
 
 War House Butte, north of Teigen, at the head of Bear Creek, was 
 named from a battle that occurred at that place between two hostile bands 
 of Indians. One party strongly fortified the Butte with log war houses 
 that were too strong to be successfully attacked by the other party, which 
 retired. 
 
 Ware, named for a New England town by the Milwaukee officials. 
 
 Weede, postoffice founded in 1901. Named after Ed Weede, a rancher 
 of that vicinity. 
 
 Wild Horse Lake, name originated before the days of the free range, 
 from a band of wild horses in the vicinity, often caught by the first 
 settlers. 
 
 Windham, founded in 1907 when the Great Northern was built. Named 
 from Windham County, Vermont, the birthplace of L. H. Hamilton of the 
 Sage Creek Sheep Co., whose ranch included the site of Windham. 
 
 Winifred, named after the eldest daughter of Mr. Percy Rockefeller, 
 on of the largest stockholders in the Milwaukee Railroad. Postoffice es- 
 tablished December 8, 1913. 
 
 Winnett, named after Walter J. Winnett, a prominent rancher who 
 had a ranch there since the eighties. Postoffice established in 1910. 
 Town lots were sold July 18, 1914. 
 
 Wolf Creek, named in the early days. Running Wolf flows the year 
 around; Dry Wolf usually fails to flow in the winter. Possibly named by 
 Lewis and Clark or at least by some of the first fur traders. 
 
 Yogo. Gold discovered there in 1879, but abandoned a few years later. 
 It is an Indian name, the literal meaning of which would not look well 
 translated into English. Named by Jake Hoover.
 
 H 
 05
 
 -70— 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Page. 
 
 Amherst 12, 62 
 
 Anticlines, Southeastern Fer- 
 gus Co 40 
 
 Mountains 46 
 
 Argentite 16 
 
 Armells 13, 62 
 
 Creek 10 
 
 Mines 30 
 
 Arrow Creek 12, 62 
 
 Badlands 10 
 
 Becket 62 
 
 Bench 10 
 
 Benchland 12, 62 
 
 Belt Series 22 
 
 Big Snowy Mts 9, 62 
 
 Big Spring Creek 10, 47 
 
 Black Butte 9, 62 
 
 Box Elder 10, 62 
 
 Brick and Clay 44 
 
 Brooks 62 
 
 Buffalo 12, 62 
 
 Calcite 19 
 
 Cambrian Formations 22 
 
 Carbonates 19 
 
 Carboniferous Formations 23 
 
 Carroll 10, 62 
 
 Casino Creek 62 
 
 Caves 48 
 
 Chalcopyrite 17 
 
 Cheadle 14, 63 
 
 Chlorides 18 
 
 Christina 13, 63 
 
 Climate of Fergus Co 51 
 
 Coal 37 
 
 Coffee Creek 12, 63 
 
 Copper 17, 20, 30 
 
 Cretaceous System 24, 25 
 
 Crooked Creek 10, 63 
 
 Crystal Lake 48, 50, 63 
 
 Cumberland Mine 30 
 
 Danvers 12, 63 
 
 Deerfield 63 
 
 Denton 12, 63 
 
 Devonian Formations 22 
 
 Dikes 16, 48 
 
 Dover 13 
 
 Elements 16 
 
 Feldspar 20 
 
 Fergus Co. — Area and Loca- 
 tions 9 
 
 Altitude 9 
 
 Mountains 9 
 
 Organized 11 
 
 Rivers 9 
 
 Settlement 11, 59 
 
 Population 12 
 
 Origin — Name 64 
 
 Soil 56 
 
 Geographic Influences 59 
 
 Climate 51 
 
 Water 54 
 
 Surface Features 46 
 
 Page. 
 
 Flatwillow 14, 64 
 
 Creek 10 
 
 Fluoride 18 
 
 Forest Grove 14, 64 
 
 Fort Maginnis 11, 64 
 
 Freighters 10, 59 
 
 Galena 16 
 
 Garneill 12, 64 
 
 Geographic Influences 59 
 
 Geographic Names, Origin of.. 62 
 
 Geology of Fergus Co 22 
 
 Geological History 26 
 
 Gilt Edge 13, 64 
 
 Mines 31 
 
 Glengary 12, 64 
 
 Gold 16, 28, 34 
 
 Grass Range ...14, 64 
 
 Ground Water 54 
 
 Gypsum 17, 18, 42 
 
 Hanover 13, 64 
 
 Hematite 18 
 
 Hilger 13, 64 
 
 Hobson 12, 64 
 
 Hoosac 12, 64 
 
 Ice Caves 49 
 
 Igneous Intrusions 15 
 
 Irrigation 55 
 
 Judith Basin, Settlement of.... 10, 59 
 
 Judith Gap 9 
 
 Judith Rivers 10, 65 
 
 Jurassic Rocks 24 
 
 Kachia 65 
 
 Kendall 13, 65 
 
 Mines 34 
 
 Kolin 13, 65 
 
 Laccoliths 15, 46 
 
 Lead 16, 19, 30, 36 
 
 Lehigh 13, 65 
 
 Lewistown 11, 12, 65 
 
 Limestone and Portland Ce- 
 ment 43 
 
 Limonite 19 
 
 Little Belt Mts., Mines 36 
 
 Origin of Name 65 
 
 McDonald Creek Divide 9 
 
 McDonald Creek 10, 66 
 
 Maginnis Mine 30 
 
 Maiden 13, 65 
 
 Mines 29, 30 
 
 Merino 13, 66 
 
 Metal Deposits 28 
 
 Minerals in Fergus Co 16 
 
 Moccasin 12, 13, 66 
 
 Moore 12, 66 
 
 Musselshell 9, 66 
 
 New Year 66 
 
 Mines 31 
 
 North Moccasin Mts., Mines.... 34 
 
 Novary 14, 66 
 
 Origin Surface Features of 
 
 Fergus Co 46
 
 -71- 
 
 INDEX ^CONTINUED) 
 
 Page. 
 
 Petroleum and Natural Gas.... 46 
 
 Picturesque Fergus Co 46 
 
 Potash 44 
 
 Pre-Cambrian Rocks 22 
 
 Production of Minerals 36 
 
 Pyrite 17 
 
 Quadrant Formation 23 
 
 Quarternary Deposits 25 
 
 Quartz 18 
 
 Railroads 11, 12 
 
 Rainfall of Fergus Co 53 
 
 Replacement Deposits 28 
 
 Rocks in Fergus Co 15 
 
 Ross Fork 10, 13, 67 
 
 Roy 13, 67 
 
 Sandstone 44 
 
 Sapphire 18, 42, 67 
 
 Silicates 20 
 
 Silver 16, 30 
 
 Smith 14, 67 
 
 Soil and Its Effect on Agricul- 
 ture 56 
 
 Spalerite 16 
 
 Spotted Horse Mine 29 
 
 Page. 
 
 Stanford 13, 67 
 
 Steamboats on Missouri 10. 
 
 Straw 12, 67 
 
 Suffolk 13, 67 
 
 Sulphates 17, 18 
 
 Sulphides and Tellurides 16 
 
 Sulphur 16 
 
 Sylvanite 17 
 
 Teigen 14, 67 
 
 Tertiary Formations 25 
 
 Topaz 20, 42 
 
 Trappers and Traders 10 
 
 Traventive 25 
 
 Tyler 14, 67 
 
 Ubet 67 
 
 Utica 12, 68 
 
 Valentine 13, 68 
 
 Ware 12, 68 
 
 War House Lake 68 
 
 Warm Spring 49 
 
 Creek 10 
 
 Windham 13, 68 
 
 Winifred 13, 68 
 
 Winnett 14, 68 
 
 Yogo 11, 68
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIF^NIA LIBRARY 
 
 
 
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 Stockton, Calif 
 
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