FORESTRY. | BLT 
greatest length is 414 miles, and its greatest width 360 miles, thus hav- 
ing an area of 150,932 square miles, or 96,595,840 acres, including a de- 
tached portion of 2,000 square miles lying west of Wyoming Territory. 
The Missouri River traverses nearly the whole Territory from north- 
west to southeast, and with its many tributaries drains the greater por- 
tion of the Territory. The Red River of the North forms the eastern 
boundary for two hundred miles. It has numerous tributaries in Da- 
kota, but with the exception of the Pembina, which drains the north- 
eastern portion of the Territory, they are mostly small. The only other 
large streams not connected with the Missouri are the Mouse, or Souris, 
an inlet or tributary of Souris Lake, and the stream which connects 
Turtle Lake with Devil’s Lake. 
The Territory of Montana, which lies about midway between the Great 
Lakes and the Pacific Ocean, is embraced between 45° and 49° of north 
latitude, and 104° and 115° longitude west from Greenwich. It is about 
276 miles wide and a little over 520 miles long, and contains 143,776 
square miles. The lines of drainage are as follows: 
1. The Missouri, with its numerous tributaries, the most important of 
which are the Milk, Marias, Judith, Muscleshell, Madison, Gallatin, and. 
Jefferson Rivers. 
2. The Yellowstone and tributaries, of which latter the Big Horn, 
Tongue, and Powder are the most important. 
3. Clark’s Fork of the Columbia (connecting Flathead Lake with the 
Lake Pend D’Orcilles in Idaho), with its tributaries. 
4. The Koolanie River in the northwest corner of the Territory. 
Mr. Thomas P. Roberts estimates the,area of the basin of the Mis- 
souri above the mouth of the Yellowstone to be about 93,300 square 
miles, and the area of the Yellowstone basin to be 78,750 square miles. 
Nearly the entire surface of Dakota and a large portion of Montana 
are composed of plateaus of greater or less elevation. 
In the southeastern portion of Dakota there is a range of high lands 
called the Coteau des Prairies. Its greatest elevation is 2,046 feet 
above the sea. West of this is another range called the Coteau de Mis- 
souri, which extends to the Missouri River. These two plateaus are 
separated by the valley of the Dakota or James River. North of the 
Coteau des Prairies extends the valley of the Red River of the North, 
which is about forty or fifty miles in width, and sloping to the north 
from an elevation of about 1,100 feet at Breckenridge to 787 feet at 
Pembina. West of the Missouri the country gradually rises and cul- 
minates in the Black Hills and other outlaying ranges of the Rocky 
Mountains or foot-hills. 
Between the Big Cheyenne and White Rivers is a large tract extend- 
ing into Nebraska, known as the Mauvaises Terres or Bad Lands. 
For a more detailed description of the country it may be said that 
both Dakota and Montana are divided into— 
1. The bottom lands. 
2. The plateaus or prairies. 
3. The mountains or hills. 
4, The Bad Lands. 
The Red River of the North has no bottom-land proper, the basin con- 
sisting of open, grassy plains, which slope gradually down from the 
highlands. 
All of the other streams, except in the mountainous region, are bor- 
dered with bottom-lands, varying greatly in extentfrom the broad lands 
of the Missouri and Yellowstone to the narrow strips along the smaller 
creeks. These bottoms are separated from the plateaus above by 
