The river press., 1883-05-09
OUR BARKER BUDGET.
The Smelter Turning out $50 Bars of Bull
lion Day-Why the Benton Branch
Should be Built at Once.

HUGHEsvILLE, M. T., April 80, '83.
Editors of the RIVER PRESS.
The mining industry Of the Barker
district is being worked with very salts
factory results to the share owners of the
Clendenin mining and smelling COM
pany. The blast furnace is now, and
has been for the past ten days, running
in full blast and is turning out from 100
to $50 bars of bullion every twenty-four
hours, principally on the ores from the
Silver Bell mine.
Messrs. Emery & Farnum, the former
the vice president of the company and
the latter one of the principal share
owners, both late of Chicago, are now
in camp, it being their first visit to this
part Of Montana. The gentlemen are
highly pleased with the past manage
ment of the company's business here,
and the only reason they have for not
increasing their smelling capacity to
double Or treble the present is the matter
of cheaper transportation, which in
their opinion will in short time be at
hand. 1t is now settled fact in the
minds of mining experts who have late
ly made thorough examination in this
district that there are enough mines suf
fciently developed to keep at least half
q dozen blast furnaces running steadily
the whole year round. The output Of
ore and bullion from this part Of Mon
tana is something that should attract the
early attention of the directors OF the
Northern Pacific railroad to the necessi-
ty of building at once the Benton and
Billings branch road. 1t would from
the very time of it's completion be one
of the best paying railroads in America
for the number of miles in length, not
excepting the famous Virginia and
Truckee road of Nevada, which for a
long time carried from Virginia City,
Nevada, three car loads of pure silver
daily and hauled all the timbers and
other materials necessary to work the
celebrated Comstock mine. The very
fact that the Benton and Billings road
will pass through one of the best stock
growing countries in the world, and the
most fertile valleys of Montana is alone
sufficient to justify the building Of the
road. But when we take into consider
alton that the road must necessarily pass
around the eastern base Of the Belt
mountains, thereby giving cheap trans
portation for the ores and bullion pro-
duct of the several mining districts
also passing through one Of the best
timbered regions Of Northern Montana;
and last, but not least, tapping the head
Of navigation on the Missouri at Fort
Benton, then can we say that the re-
sources Of the country tributary to the
Benton and Billings branch Of the
I. Nolthern Pacific have no equal in
America.
The cost Of transportation from Bar
ker to Billings is enormous. The Glen
on their last shipment of twenty tons OF
bullion, paid from Clendenin to Billings,
distance Of $50 miles, $35 per ton, and
from Billings to Chicago, over 1,5OO
miles, they only paid $14 per ton-quite
a difference in prices. Lead in the east.
ern markets is worth only about $50 per
ton, and at the present rates of freight
it costs $40 to deliver it. This is another
reason why the Benton and Billings
road will be one of the best paying rail-
roads in the country, for when we get
cheaper transportation there will be 100
tons of bullion shipped daily to the one
that is now shipped. In short, [ will
say, give us q railroad and we will show
to the world that we have here in the
Snowies and Little Belt mountains some
of the most productive and extensive
gold, silver and copper mines that there
is in the world. III.
River News ~