Show cw A DAKOTA WliXTEU LOCATION SCENERY AND ADVANTAGES ADVANT-AGES OF JAMESTOWN Not a Hard lYintor Gen Miles Winter Campaign llabbing the Frost Ont Thawing a Frozen Ulan The Coteaux A Geological Puzzle Special Correspondence JAMESTOWN D T March 18 Nature gives signs of coming spring and now that it is over we can say that the past has not been a severe whiter Thirtyeight degrees below zero is the coldest I have personally per-sonally felt in Dakota though the mercury went ten degrees lower in a few places Nevertheless one who ventures any distance dis-tance from the settlement is wrapped and muffled till he looks U like a walking hogshead hogs-head of wool and fur But of all the local phenomena in midwinter rather rath-er the strangest tome to-me is the eccentric course of the sun t To see that brilliant luminary i peep above the horizon t I in the southeast after So m creep low along the southern sky and sink in the southwest south-west soon after 4 p m cutting amore a-more crescent out of the firmament a crescent but 20 degs wide at noon is indeed a strange sight to a vLilI from lati visitor A WINTER COSTUME tude9 degs And yet it has a perceptible effect on the air for the mercury always rises 5 or 10 degs by 2 p m and even before sunrise there is a change as the registering thermometer of the signal office marked 37 degs below as the coldest during the last night of S6 while at sunrise uXstood at 34 degs It makes one shiver to hear the old soldiers tell of Gen Miles winter campaign For weeks together his men marched scouted I and fought where the mercury never rose to 10 devices above zero More than once they broke trails up a mountain gulch where the snow was from two to ten feet deep each man taking the lead by tums for a few minutes min-utes at a time It was severe enough on the soldieif but it was destruction to the Indians as it is impossible for them to move fast in winter They are thinly clad at the best and their custom is to lie close in their teepees during the coldest weather and at such times they are almost as stupid as hibernating hiber-nating animals Their ponies are also poor and unshod The soldiers on the other hand ere warmly clod and well fed and their horse have some grain so they penetrate to the very doors of the teepees in tolerably fan fighting condition There has been no fighting in Dakota for several years but there are occasional journeys jour-neys of great hardship In the terrible winter of 1STJSO Lieut H Liggett with company K of the Fifth United States made the march from Bismarck over to the Yellov stone valley and return taking supplies to n post Every night when the tents were erected be took his stand at the door and applied ap-plied snow to every mans face and ears before be-fore allowing him to go near the fire The men were all rustlers and picked for the business yet they could not keep ears and noses from getting frosted in a days ride After getting into quarters once more the skin peeled off most of their faces but no serious harm resulted The striking fact is that ear or nose often freezes so suddenly that one does not know it he is lot conscious of painful cold for more than minute especially if there is no wind Wh n 1 friends ride out together on a cold and cal1 day it is the polite thing for each to w ate the others nose and clap on a bunch of MIO at the first sign of freezing And after a rid on entering a house you will occasionally I surprised by a polite request from the Li for you to stop in the hall and not go ne the fire till he can rub the frost out of yon nose The northern Indians have a system 13 l which they can restore a man frozen iilmnt i solid if there is still a good circulation in lN = vital organs They first t put him in a tetI H1 without fire and but little warmer than tl 1 lop outer air and nib his frozen members wish I snow then with fur and then with b1 hands till circulation is extended a little Next ho is taken into a slightly warmer pi e and the extremities kept cool with snow till he gains a little more and lastly his f nw n members are immersed in cold water while l the sound part of him is warmed and cheerl 1 with food amid drink The philosophy of it is that the thawing must be brought on by lime 1 natural cimcuhu I ion from within outwardly and then th blood gets into each section as fast as it is restored But of the surfut thaws first from external heat the circi tion cannot reach it at once and in a MS prisingly short time it is dead flesh Man it man lost a leg arm ear or nose in the eai ly days of ignorance who would now be restored re-stored sound and whole by the Indian method The coteaux of Dakota are certainly a curiosity cu-riosity in geology Going west from this place which isrnly 1400 foetaboe tide and in the vi my lowest part of tIme 5c trough of Tames St river one first rc fe to the general lve 3 of the prairie Ii Westward then 4 1 rise is very grn Ito t t 4 I-to the f pastern i SM 1 of the coteaux rm then abrupt to r 1 1 summit Ev < 1JJJ where among t j 18 j coteaux oiiit i I i pecially i r t i main one belw 4er here and the N 1 souri the SUllt m level drops suln ly to walled b ht sunken ineatiw lakes and gi assy A DAKOTA TEAMSTER Valleys At fir view one would say They are simply th IP iv mains of original Dakota all was highi 1 the rest is washed away But he Vouitl In wrong The coteaux even more than Hit prairies show that they are the result of diifr the earth is a compact blue clay an there as hero the few boulders arc out top of the hills showing that they were brought here by ice Let geologists geolo-gists furnish the explanation the practical fact is that all the eastern port of this mam coteau has a singularly mild winter cliinnte and that thousands of horses and 1 cattle live there on the dried and cured grass J H BEADLE |