Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1882-12-14
Helena, Montana, Thursday, December II, 1882.
BITUMINOUS COAL.
The Great Stores of Valuable Fuel in
Gallatin County.

The Great Stores of Valuable Fuel in
GalIatin County.
The last Courier contains a very interest
ing description of a trip to the coal mines in
the vicinity of Bozeman. The facts stated
in the following extract from the article will
be interesting as well as surprising to many
of our readers:
ave only visited two tunnels-one at
each side of small gulch on the north side
of Rocky Caflon-but they were sufficient to
convince us that all previous ideas regarding
the coal veins in this section of the county
has fallen utterly short of existing facts.
| The first tunnel we entered, although pene-
trating but little more than 100 feet into
the face of the mountains, had tapped and
passed almost through a vein of excellent
coal, about 25 feet thick, and which Col.
Chestnut has demonstrated runs almost to
the summit of the mountain, distance of
about 700 feet, and which doubtless extends
several hundred feet below. It is from this
tunnel and vein that great deal OF the coal
now being used in BOzeman is obtained. On
the opposite side of the ravine is the other
tunnel, in which the same vein has been
tapped, and from which Col. James Muir is
/
large engines operating on either end of the
Bozeman Pass tunnel, and for which Muir
pays Col Chestnut dollar ton royalty.
We were informed that beyond this, varying
from sixty to eighty feet apart, there are two
other veins of nearly equal magnitude and
importance, and which can be conveniently
tapped and worked from the same tunnels.
Here we have, as it were. a vast mountain
Of COAL capable of yielding, at a nominal
expense, millions of tons of excellent btu
minous coal mot Ignite, mind you,j
and within stone throw Of the Northern
Pacific Railroad, and which, within few
months, will transport it to Bozeman at
freight rate not to exceed, perhaps, one dol
lara ton-a saving of at least So per ton
over the present wagon transportation rates.
Col Chestnut informed us that he had
traced the coal veins a distance of about
three miles, and that he, in connection with
Major Pease and C. w. Hoffman, has filed on
ground covering the length and breadth of
the veins thus discovered, and for which he
will doubtless obtain good and sufficient title
from the Government.
In addition to the coal veins thus briefly
referred to, we are informed that the North
ern Pacific Company have discovered fayora-
BILE out-croppings Of coal in the vicinity, on
their own sections, which they purpose de-
veloping at an early day. A short distance
to the southeast, Mr.. Daniel Maxey also
owns valuable coal mines, which he is sue
cessfully working, and from which for some
time he has been supplying several business
firms and private families in Bozeman with
coal of an excellent quality. Still farther
east and south several other apparently i'm
portant discoveries have beea made and filed
on by other parties, so that, taking present
developments and unmitakable indications,
we are warranted in saying that the coal in
terests of Gallatin County at no distant day
are destined to rival any other important in
dustry in the county, and to intelligently
coincide with Col Chestnut's prediction,
that Gallatin County is destined to become
to Montana what Lehigh County is to the
great State Of Pennsylvania"
Sights and Scenes in the Bad Lands.
From Glendive CORRESPONDENT to Butte Union.l
Father DeSmet's lake. near Fort Phil
Kearney, contains devil" fish that seems to
be cross between catfish and lizard,
having legs but no scales.
Further on are ridges of iron that are COW
cred with boulders, having round, smooth
balls enclosed in shells, which, when struck
with pick, roll out and resemble cannon
balls. These are of all sizes, and some of
them are charge with magnetism to such
degree that when placed near each 9th er on
a floor they will roll together.
Not far from Clusters battle ground on the
Little Horn river is huge, conglOmerate
boulder as large ASIA farm house, made up
of a great variety of shells. 1t lies in a de-
he l., r1,1 hoxy
seen it wonder how it came there. If Prof.
Leconte, Of the University of California, and
author of one of the latest and ablest works
on geology, is correct, the creatures that
once inhabited those shells oozed up out of
now extinct lake, just as millions of such
creaturers are now oozing up out of the bot
tom of Lake Taho
In the same district are petrifed logs, with
one end buried in the side of bluff and the
other protruding out and breaking off in
blocks. Some of these are three feet in
diameter, with each years growth plainly
visible in the grain. In the same bluffs are
tusks of the Megatherium as large around
as a mans body, which are likewise i'm
bedded at one end and breaking off into
blocks at the other. The porous insides un-
der the ennamelled surface are unmistakable
proof that they are bones Both the tree
and the tnsks are as black as coal at the ex-
posed ends, but gray in color where covered
by the hill.
Seven miles south of the Little Missouri
is coal mine on fire. At one of the vents
of this burning mine, Morris Cain, a black
smith, took Welding heat on a broken pit
man rod of moving machine. There are
numerous other similar subterranean fires in
the district. with blow holes, that impress
the aboriginal and the primitive frontiers
man with a superstitious dread and are often
the means of prompting the remark; II
don't believe hell is half mile from here"
A Growing Youth.
Pail Mall Gazstte.l
Jean Condoist has been brought to Paris
as medical curiosity from the Haute Caone.
According to medical contributor to a
" Al 4