10 MONTANA : INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES 



mountain deposit tliat is the larjrest l<no\vn in the world. Its soft wood saw 

 timbers belong to the only great body of svuh timber remaining in this country, 

 which is one of the three great bodies left in the world. 



In addition to these resources which are more or less generally known. Mon- 

 tana has many other resources (»f which few persons are aware. Big iron de- 

 posits are one. It has big possibilities of finding still other resources. Illus- 

 trative of this, the fact that Montana possessed important manganese deposits 

 was not dreamed of until 1917. Its phosphate deposits were accidentally dis- 

 covered while geologists were engaged on entirely differentt work. A valuable 

 clay deposit in Sheridan county was discovered in like manner. Among its 

 chromite deposists is one bed 27 miles in length, which proltably is the largest 

 in the United States, but less than tour miles of it has been more than cursorily 

 examined. In the 1910 reports of the United States Geological Survey there was 

 no mention of either chromite or manganese in Montana. The existence on a con- 

 siderable scale of many other resources of much value to industry is reported but 

 there has been no thorough investi.gatiou. A siuumary of the occurrence of 

 known and reported natural resources of Montana will be found in the appendix. 



Man.v economic forces that caused the centralization of manufacturing in 

 the Atlantic coast states are either no longer potent or have been carried to 

 such an extreme as to set adverse influences at work, so that 

 Drift Toward tendencies at present point to a decentralization. An example 

 Decentralization of the first-named cause is a more stringent immigration law. 

 which has restricted the hitherto abiuidant supply of cheap 

 labor, and is inducing many nianufadurers to look to other parts of the country 

 in the expectation that the more healthful atmosphere and the higher types of 

 available workers, as to natural characteristics, will more than offset the handi- 

 caps incident to a new location. An example of the last-named cause is seen 

 in the fact that production has so far exceeded the absorbing power of the 

 region that tran.'^portation has broken down luider the double burden of outgoing 

 manufactured products and incoming raw materials and foodstuffs. The center 

 of population has steadily moved westward. As production has increased, raw 

 materials near at hand have been depleted. Increased production has meant more 

 workers and a food supply from a larger area. These three factors have made 

 for hauls that have steadily lengthened and for mounting transportation costs. 

 The advantages of the original locations, in many instances, are no longer com- 

 mensurate with the disadvantages new conditions have interposed. Far- 

 sighted manufacturers and financiers have begun to realize that this economic 

 structure has aggravated the developjuent of single industry communities with 

 an attendant chain of physical, social and other evils. Much class hostility and 

 friction between industrial and agrarian interests is ascribed to this development. 



Because of many influences, only a few of which have been touched upon, 

 there is a distinct trend at present toward the decentralization of production (not 

 of large scale control i and the upbuilding of multiple industry communities. 

 This new development will be controlled in location by the types of manufactur- 

 ing enterprises, which some economists classify in three groups. The most 

 important are those which are located with direct reference to the source of raw 

 and process materials, and in a second group those which follow the market by 

 reason of relative or actual high cost of transportation of the finished product, 

 or because of some other factor making marketing moi-e con\enient from a local 

 source. In a lesser third group are placed enterprises largidy dependent upon the 

 initiative and energy in the persons who have the desire or .special aptitude for 



