The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1898-11-25
A MONTANA ice MINE
How They Dig Out Concentrated
Gold in Custer County.
AN UNDERGROUND CAVE
An Extremely Cold Current OF Air Said
to Keep the Ice and Snow OF Win
ter In al Excellent Condition
for Summer Use.

The San Francisco Call in its Sun
day edition publishes an account of an
ice mine which Is aid to exist in Gus
ter county. The Call accompanies its
story OF the mine with a picture of
miners at work in a deep shaft, dig
ging u the ice. The Calls article is
as follows:
Seven miles north and a little to the
east OF the Cheyenne Indian agency in
Custer county. Montana, is a well filled
with Ice that excites much curiosity
among the ranchers and cattle men of
that section. Every cowboy who visits
the well has much to tell and invari-
ably advances his own explanation.
Many ingenious theories are given
which tend to indicate that mankind of
all degrees of scientific knowledge put
forth an effort to find the origin of
things; however. they all agree that
the Ice forms i'm the well during the
summer and that IL actually thaws
during the winter This apparent con-
tradiction of the natural laws tina gov
ern the outside world has carried the
fame OF this well for miles around and
people ave Travelled great distances to
witness the formation of icicles during
the hot weather of July.
lnlS Ntl Is Nllul1 a Few nunQTtQ
feet of the summit of the Little Wolf
mountains. on the north slope, at the
very beginning of Greenleaf creek,
which empties into the Rosebud eight
miles from where the Rosebud Joints
h Yellowstone river. This portion of
the mountains Is covered with a dense
growth of tall pines.
Fourteen years age three men pros
pecting for silver. installing certain
colors In the rocks. began sinking a
shaft; at Is feet II was disagreeably
cold; at 20 feet the cold had increased
so rapidly that they were thoroughly
frightened. They ould feel currents of
cold air rushing up from the crevices in
the rock; they imagined they were dig
ging into some mysterious underground
cavern; they had heard just enough of
wonderful adventures of digging into
n underground lakes. and be-
ing alone In his wilderness, where the
very stiffness permitted the ears to hear
and the mind to imagine all manner of
grewsome powers hid beneath the rock.
so thoroughly filled them with the fear
OF impending danger that they aban-
doned the work which has since gained
such enown
The SUBMITS of the Little Wolf
mountains are covered with scoria,
which has all the appearance and tex
ture Of a good grade of thing. 1t is
usually red, but varies in color through
all the shades down to black. These
varying colors give the beautiful tints
to the thousands of buttes throughout
the bad lands. In comparatively recent
geological times vast beds Of Ignite
coal were formed over the eastern half
OF Montana, extending into Western
Dakota The burning of these beds of
coal was the beginning of the bad and
formation: the fine deposits of clay
above the coal were burned as brick
are burned in a kiln and formed the
scoria; where the heat was greater and
rock or sand was present IL melted and
mixed with the coal and coal ash. form
ing large cinder-like rocks which are
sometimes mistaken for lava. As the
coal burned out from beneath the clay,
now baked into scoria and melted into
cinders. broke into small divisions and
fell promiscuously down into the pits
thus formed. Volcanic ash Is found
scattered over the Little Wolf noun
tains and the eastern portion of Mon
lana. II must have drifted with the
win from powerful eruptions in tho
Rocky mountains, as there are no Ina
dications of any volcanic action In tha
vicinity Of the ice well. The Little Wolf
mountains are merely a high range OF
buttes apparently of the same origin az
all the bad and buttes. Their SUBMITS
towering above all the other buttes has
given them the name of mountains, but
they are only OF slightly over 1000 feet
altitude. ,
IF ice were to he put into the well
during the winter II would keep
throughout h summer nearly as well
as II stored away In the ordinary ice
house. BY chance nature has formed
almost the identical conditions that
man has made use OF to preserve ice
through the hot weather. The shaft Is
the cavity In which to store the ice:
the volcanic ash filling into the pen