THE NORTHERN PACIFIC ROUTE. 63 
Near milepost 160 (Demores station) a flat-topped butte can be seen 
on the left (south) that stands far above most of the other surface 
features. This is known as Square Butte. An irreg- 
Sentinel Butte. ylar, two-crested butte, which is about as high as 
ras Square Butte and visible on the right (north), is called 
; ‘Camels Hump. The most prominent and best known 
of the high knobs in this vicinity is Sentinel Butte, which has an 
altitude of 3,350 feet, or 620 feet above the town of the same name, 
and is the highest point of land in North Dakota. These buttes 
are composed mainly of the Fort Union formation, but they are 
capped by a thin bed of shale that is supposed to belong to the 
White River formation, of Oligocene age. The land about the base 
of Sentinel Butte was a few years ago only a sagebrush plain, but is 
now divided into farms that in appearance resemble those of the 
older farming regions farther east. 
Beach (see sheet 10, p. 68) is one of the towns that have recently 
grown up as a result of the successful farming of this 
Beach, N. Dak. ‘ : 
Tievasion 2.770 met. . 2O8108- West of Beach the railway crosses the State 
Population 1,003. line into Montana, a little west of milepost 176. The 
St, Paul 626 miles. hosition of the State line is indicated by a sign on 
the left of the track. - 
The State of Montana has an area of 146,572 square miles, or a little 
more than that of the States of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, 
Pennsylvania, and Ohio. It was admitted to the 
Montana. Union in 1889 and according to the census of 1910 had 
a population of 376,053. Montana has long been 
known as a metal-producing State, and many have thought of it as 
being entirely mountainous and as suited only for mining. As a 
matter of fact, the western half alone is mountainous; the eastern 
half, an area nearly as large as North Dakota, is in the Great Plains. 
Although placer gold was discovered in Montana in 1852, it was not 
until 10 or 12 years had elapsed that the ‘‘gold rush’’ began and the 
outside world was made acquainted with the wondrous wealth of its 
mountain gravel. Many persons starting for the new gold diggings 
stopped in the more promising valleys, such as the Gallatin and the 
Bitterroot, and farming began almost as soon as the panning of gold. 
The mining industry of the State has passed through a number of 
changes from placer mining to lode mining of gold and silver and, 
finally, of copper as the leading metal. Before the development of the 
great copper mines at Butte, Michigan was the leading State in the 
production of copper, but it soon gave place to Montana, which for a 
number of years stood at the head. Recently Arizona has forged to 
the front and Montana has dropped to second place in the rank of 
copper producers. Despite the fact that Montana ranks second in 
