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neighborhood have a reputation for immense yield, the annual extracts of
gold, silver and copper being valued at more than $33,000,000. The
Anaconda smelter, built some twelve years ago, is said to be the largest
in the world, and the town itself seems to literally talk mining by its
streets, its houses, its business, its habits and its people.

Missoula is the third largest city of Montana. Its site is a splendid
one for a city. The Hell Gate Canon and River merge into a magnificent
plain, the foot of the noted Bitter Root Valley. The Hell Gate River
breaks out from the canon and mountains into the wide plain and sweeps
majestically across the extreme northern limit of it, hugging closely
the Mission Range to the north. At the western side of the valley the
Bitter Root River combines with the Hell Gate, and together, and now
under the name of the Missoula River, they flow westward between high
mountains. The northern end of the valley is perhaps six miles or more
wide. The great opening in the mountain is rather triangular in shape,
with the apex of the triangle many miles up the valley to the south.
Here is a city laid out and built up in perfect harmony with its
location, as is evidenced by the tasteful manner in which the place is
planned and the character of its business blocks and residences.
Telephones, electric lights, and water supply are found even in the
remote suburbs of Missoula.

The mountains literally hem them in. Immediately to the northeast is a
bare hill that is startling in its resemblance to an animal. It is like
a huge, recumbent elephant, the hind quarters of which form the northern
end of Hell Gate Canon, around which the railroad curves as it issues
from the canon. The "Mammoth Jumbo," as it is appropriately known,
reclines with head to the north and trunk stretched out behind him. One
eye is plainly seen, and one huge shoulder is visible. Down in the
south, sharp, decisive, with a steep, rocky escarpment facing us, and a
long ridge descending from it, is Lolo Peak, of the Bitter Root Range, a
noted landmark. This overhangs Lolo Pass, through which Chief Joseph
came in his famous retreat from General Howard in 1877, which terminated
in the battle of the Bear Paw Mountains, October 5th, where the brave
and able chieftain was captured with the rest-of his tribe, when almost
within reach of freedom just across the Canadian border.

At the southern extremity of the valley on the banks of the Bit