16 Miscellaneous Circular 48, V. S. Dept. of Agriculture 



on water from the wooded mountains of the national forests that 

 these examples may be considered as typical. 



The conservation of water by storage in the mountains is also 

 important for municipal water supplies. (Fig. 10.) 



MINING 



The history of mining in Montana began with the discovery 

 during the summer of 1862 of placer gold in the gravel of Grass- 

 hopper Creek, near the present site of Bannock, once the seat of 

 the Territorial government. The news of the discovery soon spread, 

 and with the rush to this new field came the finding of other dig- 

 gings. Two gold seekers, William Fair weather and Henry Edgar, 

 discovered Alder Gulch, the richest and most extensive deposit of 

 placer gold in the Rockies, if not in the world. Last Chance Gulch, 

 where Helena now stands, Confederate Gulch in Broadwater Coun- 

 ty, Nelson Gulch, and the Marysville district yielded millions. The 

 exact amount will never be known, since much of the dust was 

 taken out of the country by the gold hunters who returned to 

 the East after making their " stake." 



Although Montana heads the list of producers of silver, large 

 quantities of which are taken from copper ores as well as from 

 silver ores, the greatest mining epoch of the State was entered with 

 the discovery of copper in the Anaconda silver mine at Butte in 

 1883. So valuable was the strike that the plans of the owners were 

 changed, and they decided to erect a smelter instead of a silver mill. 

 Ore was found in seemingly inexhaustible quantities. Marcus Daly 

 built a big smelter at Anaconda, and in a short time the copper 

 produced amounted to millions of pounds. Montana now ranks 

 second in the production of copper, being surpassed only by Ari- 

 zona. 



Montana also holds second place in the production of zinc, and 

 great quantities of lead are taken from zinc and silver ores. The 

 demand for manganese during the war led to the development of 

 extensive deposits of this ore in the Philipsburg and Butte dis- 

 tricts. At Yogo, in Judith Basin, is the largest deposit of sapphires 

 in the world. There are between 12 and 15 large, and about 40 

 small coal mines in Montana, mostly in Carbon and Cascade Coun- 

 ties, and extensive deposits of low-grade coal underlie large areas 

 throughout the eastern part of the State. 



The mines of Montana have always depended more or less on the 

 forests for their successful development. In the early days the pros- 

 pector and miner built flumes and sluices from hand-hewn timber, 

 and arrastras and mills from logs. With the rapid development of 

 the larger mines came a correspondingly increased demand for wood. 

 At one time wood and charcoal were used almost entirely in the 

 smelters at Anaconda and Butte, and millions of cords were cut for 

 this purpose. The amount of wood used for mine timbers at the 

 present time is enormous. Stulls and lagging for tunnels and drifts, 

 converter poles, and mine ties are all a necessity to the industry. 



The large mining centers of the State are fortunate in their 

 proximity to national forests. The coal mines of Red Lodge have 

 forests at their very thresholds to draw from. The Butte mines 

 have in the large areas of lodgepole pine in the national forests a 



