THE NORTHERN PACIFIC ROUTE, 
55 
Some 10 years ago several lignite mines were in operation at Sims, 
but now all but one of these are closed and abandoned. The bed of 
lignite mined here is 7 or 8 feet thick, and in drilling 
Sims, 
ate: 1,982 feet. 
Pop on 86. 
St. ore 487 miles. 
a deep well for water four other beds having thick- 
nesses of about 5 feet each were found. According 
to the log of this well there is 29 feet of lignite 
below the surface at Sims in beds thick enough to 
work, and the lowest is at a depth of 710 feet. 
Bielave Sims the railway follows the small valley of Hailstorm Creek 
and affords no general view of the country. Just east of Almont the 
valley of Hailstorm Creek joins that of Muddy Creek, 
Almont. 
Elevation 1,933 feet. 
St. Paul 492 miles. 
which the railway, making a sharp turn to the right, 
ascends practically to its head. This valley shows 
cellent examples of stream meanders, the creek 
making great loops whose ends in places nearly connect. 
called slacking (from its likeness to the 
slacking of lime, though lime slacks by 
taking up alicia and lignite by parting 
with it), and the process takes place 
ee gare it is exposed to alternate 
moistur dryness. 
Manifestly a fuel containing 40 per cent 
of water can not be shipped any great dis- 
tance, as the purchaser can not afford to 
handle on account of the slacking or 
breaking up, and when stored it is likely 
to ignite spontaneously by its rapid com- 
bination with the oxygen of the atmos- 
phere or of water. Altogether it is far 
from an ideal fuel, , though very ines for 
ean lignite i is a poor fuel for raising 
steam, it is well adapted to making pro- 
ducer gas that can be used economically 
difficulty at present is that there is only a 
small demand in this thinly settled 
country for power, and hence there would 
be little market for the product, but it is 
possible that with the growing use of 
ists @ transmission lines the lig- 
nit. ; eS Pas a4 A £ 
at Dickinson and other towns in the State 
for that purpose 
Lignite occurs most abundantly in the 
Fort Union formation (the lowest forma- 
tion in the Eocene series of the Tertiary 
system), which underlies almost all the 
western part of North Dakota. It is esti- 
mated that the State contains the enor- 
mous amount of 697,000,000,000 short 
tons of lignite in beds over 3 feet thick 
and within 1,000 feet of the surface, and 
it seems probable that there is workable 
lignite within this limit under every 
section of the land in the western part of 
the State. It is difficult to form an idea 
of a mass containing even 1,000,000 tons, 
and hence the figures given above are 
iB impossible of comprehension, 
but if the amount is put in the formofa 
nate a better conception of its magnitude 
may be obtained. The lignite of the 
State, if gathered into one mass in 
the compact form in which it lies in the 
ground, would make a cube 5 miles long, 
5 miles broad, and 5 miles high. Sucha 
cube would cover nearly a township of 
land and would be almost as high as the 
and at present used only 
carried to distant towns and cities or even. 
to ranches for utilization. ite has 
been found to be an excellent fuel for 
o 
++ 
Pet 
constitutes a 
in time become of great — pe only 
to the individual citizens of the State 
but to the corporations that are ~~ 
power for use in manufacturing or 
transportation. 
