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The mouth of the Missouri River is about 400 feet al)ove sea level; tiie total 

 .all of this river is over 7,000 feet, or 3,732 feet between Gallatin and the 

 Mississippi. The length of the Missouri proper is given as 3,000 miles; add to 

 this the length of Madison River and we have 3,230 miles, which may properly be 

 regarded as the total length of the Missouri. Among the important tributaries may 

 be named Milk River; Jefferson Fork, 140 miles; Gallatin Fork, 170 miles; Yellow- 

 stone River, 1,100 miles; Platte River, 1,250 miles (including the North Platte); 

 and the Kansas River, 900 miles (including the Smoky Hill Fork). The area 

 ■drained by this great river is given as 518,000 square miles. This includes the 

 entire State of Nebraska, all of South Dakota, except a few square miles in the 

 northeast corner; nearly all of Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming, about 

 half of Kansas, more than half of Missouri, and large parts of Iowa and Colorado. 

 The Missouri basin may very properly be divided into three parts, viz., the 

 western or mountainous, the middle or plains portion, and the eastern or region 

 of deciduous trees. 



The mountainous belt includes western Montana, northwestern and central 

 Wyoming, and a small portion of central Colorado. This includes the portion 

 with an altitude of about 4,000 feet or over, and is the region of coniferous for- 

 ests and swift, clear and cold mountain streams. 



The middle belt includes most of northern and eastern Montana, a part of 

 eastern Wyoming and Colorado, and, excepting a narrow strip along their east- 

 ern edge, all of the Dakotas, Nebraska and Kansas. This is, in its general 

 feitures, a broad, level plain, with slight irregularities here and there. It is a 

 region without forests, and over much of its surface not much vegetation of any 

 kind is found. The only timber of any importance is the narrow strip of cotton- 

 woods and willows covering the l)ottom lands along the streams. The western 

 and central portions of this belt are very barren, in places even desolate, particu- 

 larly in the Bad Lands, or Mauvais Terre of South Dakota, and parts of North 

 Dakota, Wyoming, Montana and Nebraska. These tertiary beds are of great 

 thickness, usually full of alkali, and very easily eroded. 



The Black Hills constitute a mountainous island of evergreen forests and 

 beautiful, clear, cold streams in this desert plain, but need not concern us in the 

 consideration of the basin as a whole. The eastern part of this belt receives more 

 moisture and is a typical prairie region, but its streams are slow, shallow and 

 shifting, still carrying much solid matter in suspension from the region to the 

 westward. 



The third or eastern belt embraces a narrow strip along the eastern border of 

 South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas, and the portions of Iowa and Missouri lying 



