OCR Text |
Show MONTANA. Montana's gold and silver mines, now almost in sight of the Utah & Northern Railway, have yielded $150,000,000, and the annual yield since 1864 has averaged $8,500,000. Over 20,000 lodes and 2,000 placer mines have been recorded. Alder Gulch, in which Virginia City is located, has alone poured out $40,000,000 in glittering dust. Iron, lead, coal, copper and cinnabar are also plentiful. Nearly 40,000,000 acres of pastoral and 10,000,000 acres of agricultural lands are found in this grand domain, not one-sixth of which is claimed or occupied. The native bunch grass is a winter and summer feed equal to oats. Cattle, horses and sheep keep fat the year round in the open air. Profits in the cattle or sheep business have always averaged from two to three per cent per month on all capital invested. Losses of cattle, sheep or horses on the range, from all causes, rarely reach and never exceed two per cent per annum. Wheat, oats, rye, barley, and all hardy vegetables are produced in great abundance and of quality unexcelled. Apples, pears, plums, grapes, Siberian crabs, and nearly all small fruits are produced in different localities. Yellow and white pine, spruce, cedar, marble, granite, lime-stone and sandstone are abundant. Montana boasts a dozen rivers as large and beautiful as the Mohawk or Junista-three of which are navigable-and being beautifully watered by hundreds of ice-cold streams and crystal lakes, water power is therefore illimitable. All streams are full of trout and other fish; and elk, deer, antelope, moose, bear, mountain sheep and many kinds of small game abound. Numerous hot mineral springs, and a mild, invigorating atmosphere are among the attractions for health-seekers. Wages in Montana are double those paid in Illinois. Churches, schools, libraries and good, daily and weekly newspapers are more numerous than in sections of similar populations East. There is daily mail and express and the telegraph to all important points. The shortest, quickest, best and only reliable summer and winter route to Montana is that via the Union Pacific and Utah and Northern Railways. |