276 NINTH ANNUAL REPORT OF 



'Orande to the Gila, near the Pima villages, without the necessit}- of 

 surmounting a single real mountain-chain. In general, there is no 

 doubt that, if tlie traveller were not bound to touch the few watering 

 places, and to avoid difficulties of another character, he could keep off 

 from mountains altogether. If, therefore, the western terminal range of 

 the Rock}^ Mountains should reach so far south as the origin of the Gila 

 river, it certainl}' does not pass over to the south of that locality. It is, 

 however, much more likely that the road from Albuquerque to Zufii, 

 and, perhaps, even the old Spanish trail from Santa Fe, by Abiquiu 

 and the head waters of the San Juan river, to Los Angeles, turns round 

 the real southern promontory of the western terminal range. 



It is true that iurther south, in the neighborhood of Socorro, in about 

 34° of latitude, mountains of considerable elevation, and steep, Alpine 

 forms, stand on the western side of the Rio Grande. They appear, 

 however, to be separated from the Rocky Mountains by a wide interval 

 of Hat and open country, M'hich has been made use of for the pas- 

 sage of several routes. This section of country I do not know h'om 

 personal observation, except from what I could see in coming 

 dovv^n the Rio Grande. Now, even conceding lliat reasons might be 

 found to consider the mountains near Socorro as a continuation of the 

 western terminal range of the Rocky Mountains, still they would not 

 Ibrm a connexion wiili the Sierra Madre, because such a connexion 

 cannot be found further south. Between Valverde and Santa Barbara 

 the same group of mountains form tliose impassable narrows of the 

 valley of the Rio Grande, which compel the traveller to leave the 

 river and traverse, for ninety miles, the ill-reputed desert of the Jornada 

 del Muerto, or "dead man's journey," the south-eastern portions of the 

 group thus proving to stand on the eastern side of the Rio Grande. 



3. The mountains which here obstruct the valley, those further north 

 which rise in picturesque forms from the western side of the river near 

 Socorro, together with the Copper IMine Mountains, and the little group 

 of Ben Moor, appear to belong, in reality, to a central and separate 

 system, in which the Gila river takes its origin, and which might be 

 called the Upper Gila mountains. Its centre appears to be the Sierra 

 Blanca, so called, not from being covered with eternal snow, as mighi 

 be supposed, but from tiie white color of its rocks. In a deep and nar- 

 row cafion of the southern portion of the system I observed wliite masse.- 

 of a porphyritic or trachytic formation, with transitions into pearlstone. 



It has been pretended that the real connecting link between the 

 Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Madre is formed by a chain called the 

 Sierra de los Mimbres. But the traveller in the section of country' 

 where it should exist will look in vain for such a chain. The name, 

 indeed, is only applied to the restricted and subordinate mountain 

 localit)'^ on the southern verge of the Upper Gila Mountains, so called 

 from the Rio de los Mimbres, a small creek which, during the dry sea- 

 son, is lost in the plain, but is said to continue its course so far south as 

 to reach the Laguna de Santa Maria, a lake situated west by south of 

 El Paso. Mimhrc is the Mexican name of a beautiful bignoniaceous 

 shrub (a Chilojms) exclusively growing in the alluvial beds of sand and 

 pebbles of little intermittent streams. The little creek, therefore, has 

 its name from tlie shrub; and the mountain locality in which the creek 



