Beyond the West: containing an account of two years' travel in the other half of our great continent far beyond the old West, on the plains, in the Rocky mountains, and picturesque parks of Colorado. Also, characteristic features of New Mexico, Arizona, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho ... Oregon, Utah, Nevada, and ... California, the end of the West ... the great continental railroad, together with the ... most wonderful natural scenery in the world .../ by George W. Pine.

BEYOND THE WEST.
together with its large tributaries, water the southern section, giving the miner and agriculturistgood
advantages.
Down in the deep valley of Grasshopper Creelwe find the little mining town of Bannack, so name
f'rom a savage tribe. Here began the settlement of
AlMontana in 1861, in the southwest corner of the territory. Placer diggings of unusual richness were
discovered here, giving as high as fifty dollars per
day to the man. Excitement ran unbridled; miners
and others flocked in from all directions; the little
gulch soon held within its narrow hive two thousand
people. The place soon went through the first lessons which such wild mining excitements usually
undergo: drinking saloons without nurnmber, densely
crowded; gambling tables were musical with ringing
coin and shining with yellow dust; theaters, which
seem to be indigenous in mining regions, were
crowded; whisky fifty cents a drink, and champagne
onily twelve dollars per bottle. But these, like other
mines of the kind, were soon exhausted-worked
out-and the inhabitants thereof pass on to another
Eldorado.
Now the place is a good representation of the
very many we had seen in other mining sections of
the country, a gloomy succession of deserted brush
and dirt cabins and log houses, in the midst of
I'
I
i
i
i
I
184