The Irrigation Problem in Montana. 217 
course of a day’s journey, as was done by the author during the 
past summer, when he rode over 2,000 miles in various parts 
of the State. In the more rugged places mining camps may be 
‘met with when everything else fails. 
At present these mountain valleys are the more thickly inhabi- 
ted portions of the country, both because of the mines and because 
farming pursuits are more cheaply and conveniently followed 
owing to the greater abundance of small and easily controlled 
streams of water, which render irrigation possible even by the 
poorest settler. Only in the southern portions of Gallatin and 
Park Counties are the mountains so forbidding as to be uninhab- 
ited, and then in limited areas only. 
One of the remarkable characteristics of the Montana moun- 
tains is their great regularity and smoothness of contour. It is 
probable that ice action during the glacial period may have 
planed off the irregularities, so characteristic of the elsewhere 
rugged outline of the Rocky Mountains. Between these symmet- 
rical ranges of mountains lie the broad and fertile valleys before 
referred to. These are generally valleys of construction, and 
in some former geologic period were occupied by lakes whose 
beds have since been drained by the streams, as they cut their 
way out of the mountains. 
It is the extensive deposits from the ancient lakes which give to 
these valleys their fertile soils, while the unusual mildness of their 
climate is largely due to the fact that they are seldom over 5,000 
feet in altitude, and the high mountains surrounding them shelter 
them from the severe winds which, sweeping over the plains of 
Dakota, become the much dreaded “ blizzards.” 
Kast of the Tongue River and north of the Yellowstone and 
Missouri Rivers, the level bench lands are everywhere below 3,500 
feet in elevation, and often below 2,500 feet, and are very dry 
and devoid of water, though covered by an abundant growth of 
fine bunch grass. ‘These bench lands are traversed by a few nar- 
row, deep. “couleés” or “ washes” having bluff banks 50 to 300 
feet high, dry during most of the year, though roaring torrents in 
the early spring months. 
It is on these bench lands that irrigation will find its greatest 
field, for here is a comparatively mild climate owing to the low 
altitude, and here the soil is fertile, warm and deep. 
VOL. Il. 15 
