
CAPABILITIES WITH REFERENCE TO SETTLEMENT. 297 
These mountains, and the broken ground around them, form a favourite 
haunt of the buffalo; which here find abundance of food and water. The 
spring, arising from some parts of the Buttes are very coy ious, and form 
streams, which on leaving the shelter of the wooded vallies, and issuing 
on the plains, are rapidly absorbed by the dry soil and atmosphere—at 
least in the summer season. One of these was observed to be a rapidly 
flowing brook during the night and morning hours, but in the afternoon 
became quite dry. The timber of the Buttes is chiefly pine, (P. Bank- 
siana ?) much of it has been burned, but it shows a tendency to renew 
itself. The trees are not of great size, and generally in somewhat inac- 
cessible parts of the mountains, but cannot be considered unimportant in 
a country so treeless. A few of the plants, found at elevations above 
6,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains, appear also on the summits of the 
Buttes. 
700. The country surrounding the Buttes, is said to have been for a 
long time a neutral ground between various hostile tribes of Indians. 
That it has been so, is evidenced by the almost complete absence of 
buffalo bones in their neighborhood, and the rare occurrence of the 
circles of stones, marking camping places. The region is at present a 
debatable ground between the Blackfeet, Peagans, and Bloods of the 
west; the Sioux and Assineboines of the east, and the Crows and other 
tribes of the Upper Missouri. It is not passed through save by war 
parties, strong in numbers, and travelling rapidly, Ten miles north of 
the central Butte, the bodies of over twenty Crow Indians were found, 
unburied, on the scene of a conflict. 
701. From the Sweet Grass Hills, toward the Rocky Mountains, the 
country improves in appearance, and shows evidence of a greater rain- 
fall. The cactus, grease-wood, and Artemisia cease to appear. To the 
Second Branch of Milk River 
generally much broken, but shows remains of a former more elevated 

a distance of 55 miles—the country is 
surface, in somewhat extensive flat-topped hills, which, when ascended, 
are found to be nearly of equal height, and show much drier and more 
gravelly soil than elsewhere found in the region. There is usually a 
close, thick growth of grass, and the swamps and sloughs, which are 
numerous, generally hold grasses and Carices to the exclusion of the 
rushes formerly most abundant. The watershed region, from the Second 
Branch of Milk River, to the St. Mary River, is of a similar character. 
702. The portion of the fertile belt fringing the eastern side of the 
Rocky Mountains, in the neighbourhood of the forty-ninth parallel, is 
On ee a 
