The Irrigation Problem in Montana. 215 
the total value of the precious metals produced, but also in the 
values of the silver and copper products separately, and is only 
surpassed by California in the production of gold. 
While as shown above Montana produces large quantities of 
vegetables and grain, its heavy mining population and vast herds 
of live stock furnish a home market for all of its present product, 
in fact, during this year many hundreds of tons of hay and car- 
loads of grain are. being imported from the eastern States to feed 
the range stock during the coming winter. 
ToroGRAPHY. 
The topography of Montana is very different from what is 
generally supposed by those who are not familiar with it, and 
this erroneous impression is largely due to the fact that the 
country is very mountainous in the older inhabited and better — 
known portion of the State, which lies in its southern corner near 
the Idaho and Wyoming lines ; this region was first inhabited by 
those pioneers of western civilization, the prospector and miner, 
and in consequence of this and of the wild grandeur of the 
Yellowstone National Park, the generally preconceived notions of 
the topography and resources of the State are of forests and 
streams teeming with game and fish, and rugged mountains 
occupied by a few isolated mining camps and cattle ranches. 
On the contrary there are scattered over various parts of the 
State many large towns, two of which, Butte and Helena, have 
each about 20,000 inhabitants, while only one-fourth of the area 
of the State is over 5,000 feet in altitude, and at least two-thirds 
of it is below 4,000 feet. 
The mountainous district of the State, which occupies but two- 
fifths of the total area, is in the southwestern portion; these 
mountains are in fact but the last remnants of the great rockies 
breaking down from Wyoming and Idaho and terminating in the 
broad flat. plains of the Saskatchewan River on the north, and of 
the Missouri River on the north and east. 
It is in these great mountain ranges that the Clarke’s Fork and 
Snake Rivers, two of the principal branches of the Columbia, 
after rismg in the western and southern portions of the State 
join the Columbia on its way to the Pacific Ocean ; among these 
mountains in the northern portion of the State the Saskatchewan 
River rises and flows thence to the Arctic Ocean; while the 
