120 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. 
of trees through which the stream sweeps down the valley in broad, 
graceful curves. 
On attaining the top of the terrace it is found to be a sloping plain 
which rises gradually to the foot of the mountain on the west. The 
train soon passes Bedford siding, from which the old town, established 
in 1864, can be seen on the right. This was one of the placer camps 
in the early days, and it is said that the heaps of gravel marking the 
location of the old workings are still visible. 
The train climbs steadily up the sloping surface of the smooth 
plain and at Winston the traveler can see a wide sweep of the river 
valley and the Big Belt Mountains on the right. 
Winston, Across the river on the east, at the foot of the moun- 
Elevation 4,375 feet. tain, far in the distance, is Confederate Gulch, from 
Bett lia. the sand and gravel of which more than $10,000,000 
in gold has been taken. It is said that in the autumn 
of 1866 a four-mule team hauled to Fort Benton, for transportation 
down the river, 24 tons of gold, worth $1,500,000, nearly all of which 
had been taken out at Montana Bar and vicinity, near Confederate 
Gulch. 
No hard rocks have been found at the surface near the track, and 
it is supposed that they are deeply covered by sediment deposited in 
the great lake previously described. At the summit between Beaver 
and Spokane creeks a part of the Belt series can be seen in a knob on 
the north, but its constituent formations are not distinct enough to 
be recognized from the train. Charles D. Walcott has described this 
ridge as a syncline composed of the same rocks (the Belt series) as 
those that are exposed in Helena on the west and the Big Belt 
Mountains on the east. 
The railway follows in a general way the old stage road along which 
the gold seekers rushed in 1864-65 to the newly discovered Last 
Chance Gulch, where the city of Helena now stands, and along this 
road there may still be seen many old houses that resemble the tav- 
egg found along some of the famous old stage roads of the Eastern 
tates. 
On the right (north) is the broad valley of the lower part of Prickly 
Pear Creek, its irrigated and well-tilled fields contrasting with the 
background of rugged mountains. The gently undulating upland 
upon which the railroad is built is composed of sand and gravel, 
which are exposed in every cut. Beneath this surface cover are 
Tertiary lake beds, as shown by a well a little east of East Helena, 
which passed through 1,200 feet of soft lake beds before reaching the 
