245 Geology and Botany of Northern Pacific Railroad. 



Between Livingston and Bozeman, the railroad passes over a 

 spur of the Rocky Mountains composed chiefly of Palaeozoic lime- 

 stones, part of which are Carboniferous. Above these are red 

 beds which probably represent the Jurassic and Triassic, and still 

 higher Laramie rocks with coal, apparently the same section ex- 

 posed in Cinnabar Mountain, in the valley of the Yellowstone 

 just north of the Park. The strata are very much disturbed, 

 the coal much crushed and twisted, so that it works small, but 

 it is extensively mined for use on and along the railroad, and is 

 esteemed a good fuel. Fossil plants associated with the coal, 

 prove it to be of the same age with that exposed in the cliffs at 

 the crossing of the Little Missouri. One feature of the Bozeman 

 coal it has in common with some of that from much disturbed 

 beds in Washington Territory and Colorado. It contains a large 

 quantity of yellow, translucent amber-like resin, in seams and 

 patches. As this occurs in the joints of.the coal, it is evidently 

 a secondary product resulting from its partial distillation. 



DRIFT OF THE UPPER MISSOURI. 



The Missouri River, formed by the union of the Madison, the 

 Gallatin and the Jefferson, at Gallatin City, traverses with a 

 north-westerly and then northerly course, the valley between the 

 Rocky and Belt Mountains, and finds its way out to the plains 

 by a long circuit around the northern bases of the Belt and 

 Crazy Mountains, which belong to the Rocky Mountain system, 

 and constitute their eastern outliers. Cutting through barriers 

 formed by low interlocking spurs, at the "Gate of the Mount- 

 ains," the river enters an undulating prairie country which ex- 

 tends from the north side of the Belt Mountains to and beyond 

 the Canadian line. All this region is occupied by a sheet of 

 drift that in thickness and extent rivals that of the plains sur- 

 rounding the Canadian highlands ; but as far my observation 

 extended I found this to be of local origin. 



At the Great Falls of the Missouri, the underlying rock is 

 fully exposed, but the drift sheet comes up to the edge of the 

 gorge and forms the low hills which stretch away to the east and 

 north like the long swells of the ocean. In the valleys of the 

 streams which come down to the Missouri from the Belt Moun- 



