Page:EB1911 - Volume 18.djvu/782

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MONTALIVET—MONTANA
  

hostess of one of the best-known salons of Louis XVI.’s time. She wrote two novels of merit, Elise Dumesnil (1798) and Horace (1822). She died in 1832.

Besides his masterpiece, he wrote L’Art défensive supérieure à l’offensif (1793; in reply to attacks made upon his earliest work, La Fortification perpendiculaire, of which in later editions it forms part); Mémoire historique sur le fonte des canons (Paris, 1758), and other works on the same subject; Correspondance pendant la guerre de 1757–1760 (London, 1777); Rotation des boulets (Acad., 1755); and Rélations du siège de S. Jean d’Acre (Paris, 1789). He also wrote short stories and verse, as well as comedies. He also modelled a complete course of Fortification (92 models), which he offered to the Committee of Public Safety. His bust was sculptured by Bonvallet. Montalembert’s position in the history of fortification may be summed up as a realization of his own wish to do for the defence what Vauban had done for the attack. It was the inability of his contemporaries to see that Vauban’s strength lay in his parallels and batteries and not in his bastions that vitiated their methods, and it was Montalembert’s appreciation of this fact which made him the father of modern fortification. See Tripier, La Fortification déduite de son histoire (Paris, 1866).


MONTALIVET, MARTHE-CAMILLE BACHASSON, Comte de (1801–1880), French statesman, was born at Valence on the 25th of April 1801, the second son of Jean Pierre Bachasson, comte de Montalivet (1766–1823), who had been made a peer of France in 1819. Both his father and his elder brother Simon Pierre Joseph (1799–1823) had been engineer officers, and he was educated at the École Polytechnique and the École des Ponts et Chaussées. Under Louis Philippe he occupied the ministry of the interior from, with short intervals, 1830 to 1840. After 1840 he was intendant of the civil list, occupying himself with the museums of Versailles and the Louvre, and the restoration of the palaces of Fontainebleau and Saint-Cloud. In 1847 he tried to induce Louis Philippe to adopt electoral reform, and after the catastrophe of the next year undertook the defence of the July monarchy in two works, Le Roi Louis Philippe et la liste civile (1851) and Rien! Dix années de gouvernement parlementaire (1862). He had become a member of the Academy of Fine Arts in 1840 and in 1843 grand cross of the Legion of Honour. The attitude of the comte de Chambord after 1870 led him to accept the republic, and he entered the Senate a year before his death, on the 4th of January 1880.

MONTANA, a north-western state of the United States, situated between latitudes 44° 26′ and 49° N., and between longitudes 27° and 39° W. from Washington. It is bounded N. by the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Alberta and Assiniboia; E. by North Dakota and South Dakota; S. by Wyoming and Idaho; W. by Idaho. Montana has an area of 146,572 sq. m., 796 sq. m. of which are water surface. (For map, see Idaho.)

Physical Features.—The Rocky Mountains cross the state from north-west to south-east, and with their spurs and outlying ranges occupy nearly one-third of its area in the west and south-west; the remaining portion is occupied chiefly by the Great Plains. The main range of the Rockies follows the boundary line between Montana and Idaho west and north-west from Yellowstone Park in Wyoming to Ravalli county, then turns east-north-east to Lewis and Clark county, and from there extends north-north-west into Canada. From where the main range turns east from the Idaho boundary line the crest of the Bitter Root Mountains continues on that line with a downward slope to within one degree of latitude from the Canadian border. This range of mountains, which was formed by a great fault, has a maximum elevation at its southern end of about 9000 ft. above the sea. On its slope, which rises abruptly from the Bitter Root Basin, glaciers have cut cañons between high and often precipitous walls, and between these cañons are steep and rocky ridges having peaked or saw-toothed crest lines. To the east and north-east of the Bitter Root Mountains is a considerable basin or peneplain dissected by short ranges having a north-west and south-west trend. To the south-east of this basin are the greatest mountain masses of the state; lofty and rugged ranges radiate in all directions, and in many instances rise to heights of 10,000–11,000 ft., the highest peak in the state being Granite Peak (12,834 ft.) in Carbon county. Deep and narrow cañons are common, and, at higher levels, glaciers, carved out amphitheatres, or “cirques” and “U”-shaped troughs. In the north the Rocky Mountains consist principally of two parallel ranges, the Lewis and Clark Range to the east, and the Livingston Range to the west, which were formed by a great overthrust; between them is the Waterton-McDonald valley, 8–15 m. wide. The east slope of the Lewis and Clark range is marked by long high spurs, and the valleys between them end in radiating cañons that are crowned with bold cliffs. On the higher summits the range rises to 8500–10,400 ft. above the sea, but in the wind-gaps only to 5500–6500 ft. The Livingston range is less rugged and more massive. Like the Lewis and Clark range, its crest is broken by numerous U-shaped wind-gaps and its West slope is cut by glacial troughs containing long narrow lake basins. Extending far to the eastward, especially in the south of the state, are isolated mountain groups. Among these are the Bear Paw Mountains, in the north central part, which occupy a tract 40 m. long and 20 m. wide that on the western side rises abruptly from the plains and reaches an elevation in Bear Paw Peak of 7040 ft. above the sea. The Great Plains in Montana slope from about 4000 ft. (above the sea), at the foothills of the mountains, to 2000 ft. in the north-east of the state. The valleys of the principal streams are deeply eroded; bluffs are common along their borders, and buttes elsewhere on the plains. The main range of the Rocky Mountains separates that part which is drained west into the Columbia river and the Pacific Ocean from that which is drained east into the Missouri and Mississippi rivers and the Gulf of Mexico, and from a very small part which is drained north-east into Hudson Bay; the water-parting which in Montana separates the drainage into Hudson Bay from the drainage into the Gulf of Mexico crosses only the north-west of Teton county. The principal rivers east of the Rockies are the Missouri and three of its tributaries; the Yellowstone in the south-east, the Musselshell in the middle, and the Milk in the north. The Missouri is formed by a union of the Jefferson, the Madison and the Gallatin. It flows first east-north-east and then nearly east until it passes into North Dakota. Its channel is generally erratic and constantly shifting; its bed is sandy and its water muddy. In contrast, the Yellowstone is a stream of bright clear water running over a gravelly bed and among numerous forest-clad islands. The Missouri is navigable for small boats to Fort Benton in Chouteau county, but farther upstream near Great Falls, Cascade county, to which it is navigable at high water, it falls 512 ft. in 10 m. The Yellowstone is navigable for about 300 m. The principal rivers west of the Main Divide of the Rockies are the Clark Fork of the Columbia and its principal tributary, the Flathead, which rises in British Columbia. Montana has a few mineral springs, the best known being the Lissner Springs at Helena. Small lakes and waterfalls, the result of glacial action, are numerous in the mountains. There is, however, only one large lake in the state—Flathead (or Selish) Lake, which may be regarded as an enlargement of Flathead river; it is 27 m. long, has an average width of 12 m., and a depth of more than 1000 ft.

Geology.—In the Great Plains region the geological structure is very simple, consisting of nearly horizontal strata of Cretaceous rock in the middle and western portions, and of Tertiary rock on the eastern border, but in the mountain region the rocks have been folded and faulted until the structure is intricate and obscure. Some of the deeper cañons show rocks of nearly all ages. The higher elevations are mostly either Archean or Paleozoic formations projecting above Tertiary deposits. In the Bitter Root Valley is a large deposit of Quaternary. Fossil remains of mammals, fish and reptiles found in the Tertiary deposits of south-western Montana are preserved in the Carnegie Museum at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and in the museum of the university of Montana. They include the mandible of a mastodon and a portion of a vertebra of a large fish, both found in the Lower Madison Valley; the skull and other parts of a dog (Mesocyon drummondanus), found near Drummond, Granite county; the skull of a Poatrephes paludicola, found near New Chicago, Granite county; a portion of the skull of a Mesohippus latidens, found near the confluence of the three forks which form the Missouri river; and a portion of the skull of a Hyrachyus priscus, found near Lima, Beaverhead county. In the region east of the Crazy Mountains, in Sweetgrass county, are marine beds of upper Cretaceous or lower Tertiary formation containing fossils of Dinosaurs and