Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1941-03-28

There once was time When
Montana was . tropical country.
Palms, dates and banana trees
flourished where now there are
ders. Crocodiles, the rhinoceros
and elephants disported in the
rivers and forests; camels and
miniature horses lived on the
prairies; ferocious saber-toothed
tigers crouched In the jungles.
And although this time is estimated
to have been some 5,OOO,0 1000 years ago.
there is no guess work about these
things. for the bones of the animals
have been dug out in many places and
pieced together by trained specialists.
Montana is the biologists mecca.
Students and geological classes make
regular pilgrimages from many COL
leges to Montana to study the Won
drous and varied structure Of her
mountains and plains and the vast
mineral wealth concealed beneath
them. From these studies biologists
have been led to reconstruct in mag
nation the history Of past ages, and
have become skilled in recognizing by
various methods the particular age
during which different kinds and
groups of rocks have been formed, as
well as being able to tell accurately
age and the forms Of vegetation that
existed.
The name Montana would not always
have been suitable to the area which
is comprised within our state. Soon
after the dawn of geologic history,
and for millions of subsequent years,
Montana was not a mountainous, ele-
waited country, but lay below the level
of the sea and was covered to great
depths with sands, mud and Shiny
oozeS.
Ocean Covered Land
Life in these ancient seas was scant
at first, being confined to the SIM
plest forms of sea animals and plants.
AS the ages went by higher forms
of life developed until finally. during
the period referred to by biologists as
the cretaceous period, the seas and
of fishes, crocedileS and by birds which
could not fly. But man and many
varieties Of our land animals and
plants were yet to appear.
About 100000 years ago, according
to geological reckoning, these sea bot
toms with their accumulated burden
of sediments began to be pushed up
in places in low-lying lands and in
other places into mountainous regions.
The forces which produced this up
heaval were attended by great volcanic
canic ash and lava over both land
and sea. Such were the beginnings OF
the Rocky mountains.
Not all of Montana was elevated at
this time. The eastern plains section,
lying east Of line drawn from Cut
Bank to Livingston, roughly was still
below sea level, and in shallow, swampy
areas bordering the shores, rank Vege-
tation grew and accumulated into peat
beds which now form the vast coal
deposits underlying thousands Of
square miles of the eastern and central
portions of the state. Nor was all OF
western Montana converted into dry
land. Fresh water lakes of large ex-
tent filled the depreSSions between the
newly formed mountains, and in shall
low parts of these rank vegetation
likewise grew and coal was formed.
The clay beds and coal at Drummond,
Anaconda, Wisdom, Missoula and Gla-
cier park were formed at that time.
1t was at this period that the clt-
mate was tropical, and it was also
during these times that many Of Mon
tana'S great ore deposits were formed.
Granite and other molten rocks forced
their way up into the crust of the
earth and with them metallic min
erals, which were afterward deposited
by heated waters in fisSures. which
the miner calls veins.
Glacial Age Follows
In still later times, possibly some
100000 years ago, climatic conditions
changed amazingly. 1t began TO get
colder-so cold, in fact, that the suns
of summer could not melt the winter
SHOWS, and vast masses of snow in the
mountains consolidated into ice, which
moved by its own weight down the
mountain valleys as glaciers. Also from
the north came a great solid ice sheet
covering the whole land surface to a
depth of thousands of feet in places,
and pushing before it and beneath it
great quantities of rock debris, accu-
mulated from the ground passed over.
This was the ice age. and from its
coming wonderful CHI angeS were
wrought. Rivers were diverted from