THE NORTHERN PACIFIC ROUTE, 
107 
The train winds in and out around the spurs of the mountain, 
plunging through deep cuts and speeding over high trestles. In the 
course of a few miles the city of Butte comes into 
Butte. 
Elevation 5,490 feet. ance is most desolate. 
opulation 39,165, 
St. Paul 1,128 miles. 
view on the side of a barren hill. Its general appear- 
Bare, brown. slopes, burnt 
and forbidding, from which all vegetation was long 
ago driven by the fumes from the smelters, rise from 
an almost equally barren: valley. 
The slopes, even in the city, are 
gridironed by railway tracks leading to the different mines, and great 
mine bui 
, tall smokestacks, steel hoist frames, and the heaps 
of gray waste rock from the mines are the most conspicuous features 
of. the landscape. 
Butte, from which the city takes its name. 
West of the city is the sharply conical hill, Big 
If the traveler enters 
Butte i in the evening he may obtain a beautiful view of the lights of 
block of rock that has been tilted gently 
to the east, and the time since it was 
raised to its present position has not been 
sufficient to permit the streams to cut 
deep ravines on it. 
The tilting and lifting of this block of 
strata ait disarranged many of the 
streams, causing some of them to flow in 
opposite Wineetiss from 
Ww 
they pursued prior to the uplift. It 
seems probable also that the block west 
of the fault was depressed at the same 
time, for it is difficult to understand how 
: 
3 
: 
g 
TUNNEL 
the part on the right rising about 1,000 
eet. Now the mountain top, instead of 
being at B, is at D, more than 1,000 feet 
above the valley. 
Although the main movement that 
raised ec 
hav 
been broken, and considerable difficulty 
has been experienced from the irregular 
settling of foundations. For a long time 
1 Divide east of Butte, Mont. Before doris 
occurred t he divid 2, 
han Butte is to-day. 
ert 
uate ic tid broken line ABC 
the headwaters of Silver Bow Creek 
could be ponded and produce the flat 
that can be seen from the train train, unless it 
Were the result of the downward tilting 
of the block west of the fault. The con- 
dition is illustrated by figure 22, in which 
the cross profile of the range before the 
faulting occurred is represented by the 
line ABC. The surface around Butte 
showed little relief, the mountain north 
of Homestake Pass being only a few 
hundred feet high. Then came the break 
along the line indicated by the arrows, 
' Was — that water 
these slight | movements have been 
orkings 
beneath: the city, but on close pare it 
pipes were broken 
the town far removed from 
ong 
planes. The United States Geo 
so that in the future it can be told posi- 
tively whether the rocks under the town 
| are moving and, if so, at what rate. 
. 
