GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 251 



years, is 50° Fahrenheit. The mean temperature for the spring months is 47°, for the 

 summer months 72°, for autumn 0°, for winter 31°. 



The annual rain-fall is about eighteen inches, distributed as follows: Spring, 8.69 

 inches; summer, 5.70 inches; autumn, 3.69 inches. The snow-fall is eighteen inches. 

 It is of this region that Colonel C. H. Alden, post surgeon Fort D. A. Russell, speaks, 

 when he says: "The largest snow-fall so far, in one month, has been 3 97-1000 inches. 

 The snow in this vicinity rapidly disappears after falling, and it is very rare that there 

 is a sufficient quantity so' that it remains long enough to give sleighing." 



All this country of the North Platte, east of the Black Hills, is within easy distance 

 of the railroad at Cheyenne, Pine Bluffs, Sidney, and Julesburg. An abundance of 

 timber can be had in the Black Hills for fencing and building purposes for all ranch 

 and stock men in any of these valleys. 



Extent and resources of the North Platte Basin. — There is in this North Platte Basin, 

 east of the Black Hills divide, at least eight million acres of pasturage, with the finest 

 and most lasting streams, and good shelter in the bluff's and canons. As I have said 

 before, we can only judge of the extent and resources of such a single region by com- 

 parison. Ohio has six million sheep, yielding eighteen million pounds of wool, bring- 

 ing her farmers an aggregate of four and one-half million dollars. This eight million 

 acres of pasture would at least feed eight million sheep, yielding twenty-four million 

 pounds of wool, and at the same price as Ohio wool, six million dollars. Now, that 

 money, instead of going to build up ranches, stock farms, storehouses, wooden mills, 

 and all the components of a great and thrifty settlement, is sent by our wool-growers 

 and woollen manufacturers to Buenos Ayres, to Africa and Australia, to enrich other 

 people and other lands, while our wool-growing resources remain undeveloped. 



The great Laramie Plains. — As you follow the North Platte up through the Black 

 Hill Canon you come out on to the great Laramie Plains, which lie between the Black 

 Hills on the east and the Snowy Range on the west. These plains are ninety miles 

 north and south and sixty miles east and west. They are watered by the Big and 

 Little Laramie Rivers, Deer Creek, Rock Creek, Medicine Bow River, Cooper Creek, 

 and other tributuries of the North Platte. It is on the extreme northern portion of 

 these plains, in the valley of Deer Creek, that General Reynolds wintered during the 

 winter of 1860, and of which he remarks, on pages seventy-four and seventy-five of his 

 " Explorations of the Yellowstone," as follows : 



General Reynolds's Report. — Throughout the whole season's march the subsistence of 

 our animals had been obtained by grazing after we had reached our camp in the after- 

 noon, and for an hour or two between the dawn of day and our time of starting. The 

 consequence was, that when we reached our winter quarters there were but few 

 animals in the train that were in a condition to have continued the march without a 

 generous grain diet. Poorer and more broken-down creatures it would be difficult to 

 find. In the spring they were in as fine condition for commencing another season's 

 work as could be desired. A greater change in their appearance could not have been 

 produced, even if they had been grain-fed and stable-housed all winter. Only one was 

 lost, the furious storm of December coming on before it had gained sufficient strength 

 to endure it. The fact that seventy exhausted animals, turned out to winter on the 

 plains the first of November, came out in the spring in the best condition and with the 

 loss of but one of their number, is the most forcible commentary I can make on the 

 quality of the grass and the character of the winter. 



These plains have been favorite herding grounds of the buffalo away back in the pre- 

 historic age of this country. Their bones lie bleaching in all directions, and their 

 paths, deeply worn, cover the whole plain like a net-work. Their "wallows," where 

 these shaggy lords of animal creation tore deep pits into the surface of the ground, are 

 still to be seen. Elk, antelope, and deer still feed here, and the mountain sheep are 

 found on the mountain sides and in the more secluded valleys of the Sierra Madre 

 range, all proving conclusively that this has afforded winter pasturage from time im- 

 memorial. Since 1849 many herds of work oxen, belonging to emigrants, freighters, 

 and ranchmen, have grazed here each winter. It is on these plains, in the Laramie 

 Valley, that Messrs. Creighton and Hutton have their sheep, horses, and cattle, and of 

 which Mr. Edward Creighton, president of the First National Bank of Omaha, says : 



[Extract from Edward Creighton's letter.] 



"The last four winters I have been raising stock, and have had large herds of cows 

 and calves in the valley of the Laramie. The present winter I have wintered about 

 eight thousand head. They have done exceedingly well. We have lost very few 

 through the whole winter, and those lost were very thin when winter commenced. We 

 had no shelter but the bluff's and hills, and no feed but the wild uncut grass of the 

 country. 



"We have had 3,000 sheep the past winter, and they are in the best of order ; many 

 are being sold daily for mutton. Like the cattle, they require no food or shelter. 



