OREGOX SHORT LIXE OGDEX TO YELLOWSTONE. 



127 



first white women 



The party 



Blackfoot 



west 



over the waterless plain. The old fort was abandoned many years 

 ago and practically all vestige of it is lost. 



In the Fort Hall Reservation sagebrush seems to cover every acre 

 and the traveler may question if the Indians cultivate any land. 

 Most of the Indians, however, live near the creeks and theh- homes 

 can not be seen from the train. In 1914 they had 7,240 acres under 



cultivation. 



alfalf 



barley, garden truck, and sugar beets. According to the report of the 

 Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1914 the total Indian population 

 of the reservation was 1,797, including 462 children of school age. 

 Of these Indians, 1,506 are full bloods belonging to the Bannock and 

 Shoshoni tribes. There had been allotted to the Indians 38,280 acres 



land. The old and 



grazmg 



decrepit Indians, 250 in number, get rations. More than two-thirds 

 of the Indians live in tepees and tents. Nearly a third of them winter 

 on the Snake River bottoms, where there is timber for shelter, fire 



more 



a f e w d ays . 



Tlie ro-ad up Ross Fork from Fort Hall station leads across the 

 mountams to the dam of the great Blackfoot reservoir, about 30 

 miles east, built to store water for the Fort Hull irrigation system. 

 Phosphate deposits occur about 20 miles east of Fort HaU station 

 aloncr this road. The deposits in this reservation contain approxi- 



and are estimated 



imderlie 5Si 



matelv 738,UUU,UUU long ions auu aie c^txix^^c.^ .^ ^ --^ 



square miles at depths of less than 5,000 feet; they doubtless underlie 



much larsrer area at greater 



mam 



6 or 7 feet thick and is rich in tricalcic phosphate, the mineral con- 

 stituent in bones. The phosphate beds are relatively soft and are 

 PVT.n«<.rl in onlv a few nlaces, although clearly recognizable fragments 



more 



zone of outcrop. A description of the western phosphate field, by 

 G. R. Mansfield, is given below. ^ ^^^____-_ 



Ita greatest 



^A hard problem for the farmer ia to 

 discover the needs of his depleted or un- 

 favorably proportioned soil, 

 need may be phosphoric acid, one of the 

 three substances that are most necessary 

 in maintaining fertility, the other two 

 being nitrogen and potash. Phosphoric 

 acid for use in fertilizers has been sup- 



largest 



kncmiarea 



ia of \dtal interest to future generations, if 



not to the present one. 



Albert Richter claims to be the original 

 discoverer of the western phosphate de- 

 posits, because he recc^zed rock phos- 



acia lor use in lennAicio x±aci w-^v^ ^^i- . pnatein ft .,t,„,3^l,ato 



pUed for many years in part by ,he pho. located oUums on .t Tlese pW^a e 



phates of Florida and Tennessee and from 

 islands in the Pacific Ocean. The^ de- 

 posits can not always supply the demand, 

 and therefore the recent discovery that 



^'^' - E.A.Pid- 



discov 



by 



County 



gings in black rock that he rmst 



