76 
GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. 
The high hills composed of Lance sandstones (see Pl. XI, A, p- 75), 
as shown on sheet 12 (p. 78), recede from the river until at Howard 
they are more than 2 miles from the railway, and 
Howard. 
Elevation 2,600 feet. 
Population 139.* 
shale. 
the low hills near by are made up of the Bearpaw 
The outcrop of the shale crosses the river 
and then swings far to the northeast around a dome- 
shaped structure in the rocks that brings this and 
lower formations up to the surface. 
The valley ‘increases in width until in the vicinity of Finch the 
Lance sandstones are so far back from the river that they are hidden 
Finch. 
Elevation 2,595 feet. 
806 miles, 
bottom. 
St. Panl 
by the low hills of shale at the margin of the valley 
At milepost 141, a short distance east of 
Sanders, a massive gray sandstone rises from river 
level until it attains a height above the railway of 
about 30 feet. Beyond this point it descends toward the west and 
within a short distance disappears below railway level. The highest 
point on this sandstone marks the axis of a large irregular uplift 
which lies almost entirely north of the railway. 
This sandstone is known to be the extreme eastern point of the — 
Judith River, a coal-bearing formation (see fig. 9) that is exposed 
in many places in the central part of the State. In its best develop- 
. Ment it is a fresh-water deposit, but the sandstone near Sanders 
contaims marine sh 
ells, showing that the shore of the land upon 
which the fresh-water sediments of the central part of the State were 
laid down was near this place, and that to the east of that shore line 
sand was deposited in the waters of the sea. A deep well recently 
drilled for water at Vananda, on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul 
Railway about 16 miles northwest of Forsyth 
, Started in this sand- 
Stone and struck the red shale of the Kootenai formation (sec fig. 9) 
at a depth of about 3,200 feet. 
The relatively flat land in the bottom of this valley, although 
© 
extensive 
Westward from the Black Hills the 
Niobrara fades out as a limestone, and at 
Billings it can not be identified and sepa- 
rated from the Benton. The entire mass 
of shale is called the Colorado, and this is 
equivalent to both the Benton and the 
Niobrara. The Dakota disappears west of 
upon the Kootenai (Lower Cretaceous). 
In the east the great marine deposit 
above the Niobrara is known as the Pierre 
shale. Toward the west this changes in 
ly only a sagebrush plain, was attractive to farmers, and an 
private irrigation project has been developed. Water is 
the river at Myers, between Hysham and Rancher, and 
character in its lower part, and three more 
or less sandy formations—the Eagle sand- 
stone and the Claggett and Judith River 
formations—have been recognized and 
The dark shale above the Judith 
descril 
