Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1885-10-31
What Can be Made of our Territory by
Proper Manipulation.

Estelline Bell: An exchange has been
figuring On this territory and reports as
follows; "If Dakota could be cut into a
strip Of country sixty-three miles wide
1t would reach from the Atlantic to the
Pacific, or of $50 miles wide. from Lake
Superior to the Gulf Of Mexico. In
strips n township wide it would reach
ten times across the continent, then
leave enough to equal in extent Rhode
Island, Delaware and Connecticut"
Such figures are always interesting
but seldom go as far as the public would
like. Now We'll suppose Dakota cut in
to strips a mile wide-is just as easy to
suppose the piece a mile wide as a town
ship wide. In this case a half hitch
could be taken around Pixies Peak with
one end and the other could be carried
around the earth three times before
the coil of dark, rich loan with "a clav
subsoii' would be all unwound. Or.
suppose it cut into a strip a half inch
wide, and the axis of the earth jerked
out and the strip Of Dakota tied to it for
a lash, ard some robust cowboy secured
to handle it, it could be used 10 stir I'D
the planets and cracked about the ears
of the most distant fixed star. While
we are having facts and figures on this
subject We might as well have good
healthy ones.
Or suppose Dakota could be painted
red, white and blue and fastened to the
Washington monument, it would make
a flag that would float across the Allan
tic ocean and make those British over
there tired of life. Or just imagine a
center pole could be gotten under it and
the middle raised up it would make a
tent big enough to accommodate all the
camp meetings and the circuses and-the
constitutional conventions in the world
When the people are bowling for stats.
tics why not accommodate them.
Or another supposition If Dakota
could be split up and sawed in stove
length and seasoned it would supply all
the stoves and steam engines in the
country for twenty years. Put Dakota
on a moulding board, roll it out to the
proper thickness, scallop the edges and
you will have a pie crust 10000 miles in
diameter and one that could be spread
out over the Pacific ocean, making it
hard to distinguish the whole thing by
taste from a custardpie when eggs are
S5 cents a dozen. Roll it still thinner.
cover ii with red and blue TENT lines.
cut it into pieces eight inches by four
feet and it would make paper enough ior
the druggists Of the whole country to
make out their bills on for nearly two
days.
Or again: Pull Dakota up bv the
and throw it over the fence into
the British possessions and you have a
hungry looking hole big enough in
which to bury Minnesota, Wisconsin.
Rhode Island and what the cyclones
left Of Iowa. t'u the vacancy left in
the ground up into knot holes, pnt wood
them and you have enough lum.
Der to build houses for all the United
STATES and part of New Jersey. Yank
up the holes Dakota came out of and
hat would be left of the earth would
look like a musk melon with one end
u off and the seeds and chicken gravy
| CURED ont Of its stomach. Take DakO- |
ia but what is the use of saying more?
" you want facts and figures on this ter.
,.itory just come to US during Office
hours