On the Judith River, Montana 111 



took a trolly ride out to the great smelter near 

 the Falls of the Missouri, three miles east. The 

 works cover acres of ground and the smokestack 

 is said to be the largest in the world. The falls 

 here were low and below was a series of rapids. 

 Whenever we chanced to catch a view of the 

 Missouri, on our trip east by the Great Northern 

 we could see the river for many miles, full of 

 falls and rapids. At Benton I saw no sign of 

 old Fort Benton I visited with Professor Cope 

 in 1876. We noticed along the track the typical 

 Fort Benton shales, dark colored below, yellow- 

 ish shales above, while unconformable masses of 

 the ancient river bed lined the faces of bluff and 

 ridge or helped to fill the old ravines, composed 

 of unstratified yellowish clays, sand and gravel. 

 The narrow flood plain of the river is fringed 

 with cottonwoods and poplars, with birch and 

 willow thickets, underbrush of wild roses, bull- 

 berries, etc., with the ubiquitous sage brush 

 everywhere. The Northern Pacific passes through 

 a rolling prairie north of the Bear Paw Moun- 

 tains. In 1876 the only wagon road here was 

 south of the mountains and it started at Fort 

 Benton the head of navigation, and ended at 

 Cow Island, 120 miles east. 



I noticed the farmers irrigating their gardens 

 and alfalfa fields with water drawn from the 

 Missouri with buckets attached to overshot 

 wheels, on their turning the water was spilled 

 into a trough connected with the reservoir. It 



