3-070-936 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Far West of America: sketches in the Dakota Territory, 1881. 'Camp of Indians; Station with tank for watering engines, M. P. R.; railway transfer boat; river steamer Rosebud; a farm; "Bismark" [sic]...Our Sketches represent scenes on the railway lately constructed through Dakotah; the river steam-boats, one with the peculiar stern-wheel for its propulsion; the village of Bismarck, a settler's farmstead, and an Indian camp...[The] general aspect [of the Dakotah Territory, belonging to the United States of America] is that of an undulating plain, gradually rising, with some low terraces, towards the western mountains. The Upper Missouri and its chief tributary, the Yellowstone River, flow through Dakotah, and are navigable for small steam-boats in part of their course. The soil is very inferior to that of the North-West Territory of Canada, and the climate is said to be quite as severe; but there are some districts fit for agricultural settlement. For the grazing of cattle it is, perhaps, better adapted, like much of the Western prairie land...The population consists of a few thousand white people and about as many Indians, who bring in furs, and skins of buffaloes, for sale'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.