REPORT AND ESTIMATE. 335 
from a few inclies to six feet thick, and is a source of fuel not to be overlooked. Lime and 
sand are both to be obtained, and good materials for brick exist. In summer there is a scarcity 
of water, the small streams being dried up, but from the elevation of the plateau above the 
valley a good means is afforded for keeping up a supply, with the assistance of reservoirs, in 
those places at a distance from the main stream. 
The rise in level along the Missouri is about one foot, and on Milk river about three feet per 
mile only. 
The cottonwood of the Missouri will answer temporarily for railroad sleepers. The stockade 
built of it at Fort Union, which does not rest on the ground, is firm and sound, though built 
over twenty-five years ago. Milk river is crossed in a bend of the stream at right angles to 
the current, requiring a truss of about two hundred and forty feet, with an abutment twenty 
feet above the river bottom. The masonry should be protected by piling from the wash of 
the freshets. 
CROSSING OF MILK RIVER TO FORT BENTON. 
Milk river is crossed about two miles below the mouth of Box Elder creek, and the line 
passes up its general valley about thirty miles, when a choice of routes may be made. One 
route passes up a wooded tributary of the Box Elder, thence over a low divide to the Missouri, 
and follows up the Missouri on its northern bank to Fort Benton. The other ascends the 
plateau between the Box Elder and the Marias, on the general route of the main train in 1853, 
passes near the spring, descends into the valley of the Marias near its junction with the Teton, 
continues up the Teton to the point where it approaches within one hundred yards of the 
Missouri, then passes to the valley of the Missouri, and continues on the route before referred 
The distance by the first route is eighty-one and one-half miles, and by the 
The grades up to Box Elder will range from ten to 
The several streams, 
to to Fort Benton. 
second seventy-five and five-tenths miles. { 
twenty feet. The excavations and embankments will be quite moderate. i 
which are from five to ten miles apart, will require bridges of from fifty to seventy-five feet in 
length. There are also coulées which will require some culvert work. ene valley of the 
Missouri should be struck at the mouth of the stream which flows from the springs, the distance 
from Box Elder creek to this point being twenty-one miles. About five miles from this point 
will be the summit of the divide, which, allowing for a cut of fifty feet, will have an же 
of 2,832.2 feet. The altitude of the Missouri is 2,558.5 feet, requiring a grade to meet the 
Missouri of 54.74 feet to the mile. From the Box Elder to the sammit the grade will vary from 
45.6 feet to 4.82 feet per mile. Most of this distance is : gently-rolling plateau, requiring le 
little excavations and embankments, but the first four miles from the Box xx the grade wi 
be 45.65 feet to the mile, with some heavy work. From the mouth of the creek to Fort MED" 
a distance of thirty and one-half miles, the grades will ny very gentle, not exceeding ten e 
to the mile, the whole rise being but 221 feet. In that distance, to avoid sharp wea. 
less than two thousand feet radius, there will be heavy excavations ш turning the ee whic 
project into the river. The river valley is wide, and will render it perfectly easy to waste 
] it, 2,691.7 feet. The other line referred to, passing over the plateau in 99 bc BR 
Q5 feet, when it continues over a gently-rolling prairie for 26 miles to the point 
4 
Pane Ae f the Marias, the highest point being in the vicinity 
where the descent commences to the valley o 
