MOUTH OF SAN PEDRO TO PIMAS VILLAGES. 27 



agreeable to the taste. About two miles below tbese springs water rises in the bed of the stream, 

 forming a cienega, and is probably the source of the running water found below. 



On the eastern slopes of the Sierra de Calitro there are several springs of a limited capacity, 

 such as Pheasant, Antelope, and Dove springs. These sources are probably too far from tlie 

 projected route to be of any avail for supplying locomotives. By a divergence, however, 

 these may be brought into requisition. For working parties on construction, or to emigrants 

 who may take this route, or are desirous of recruiting their animals, or troops on scouting 

 expeditions, the Calitro mountains present many advantages ; permanent water exists in 

 many places near the plain. The slopes are covered with a luxuriant growth of grama grass, 

 and the gulches are filled with oak, ash, and walnut timber, the whole appearance of the country 

 strikingly resembling many localities among the Coast Kange of California, the wild oat being 

 replaced by the grama grass. Game is also abundant — antelope, black tailed deer, and a species 

 of grouse, having been seen there — as the names given to the several springs imply. 



The relative length of these two routes is as follows : the one eighty and one-quarter miles, 

 and the other one hundred and ten miles from the summit of the Kailroad Pass, a difference of 

 twenty-nine and three-quarters miles in favor of the Aravaypa route. The maximum grade 

 upon the Nugent's pass route is one hundred feet per mile, and on the other sixty and three- 

 tenths feet per mile. Nugent's pass is also two hundred and eighty feet higher than the Rail- 

 road Pass and the average surface of the Pinaleuo plain. The localities for water are nearly 

 equal on both routes. These items are sufficient to demonstrate the superiority of the Aravaypa 

 route. 



Section 4. 



Third Division. — From the mouth of the San Pedro to the Pimas villages. — This division lies 

 solely in the valley of the Gila, and may be subdivided into the upper or gorge division, and 

 lower or plain division. A short distance below the mouth of the San Pedro, the Gila com- 

 mences to flow westward, and in so doing encounters and pierces the axes of upheaval, pro- 

 ducing short caiions or gorges, separating the valley portions above and below where the side 

 hills recede, and give slopes more favorable for locations. The river bed varies in width 

 according to the locality, occupying in the gorges the entire bottom, while in the open portions 

 it spreads out over an area from fifty to one hundred yards wide, and is made up of a single channel 

 or stream, during ordinary stages of water, together with a number of side drains, which, from 

 the drift wood, sand, and cobble-stone beds, are evidently overflowed, either during the season 

 of rains or on the melting of the snows on the mountains near its sources. The water was clear 

 and palatable, flowing with a moderate current over an alternating bed of sand, pebbles, and 

 rock. The stream was, in July, about twenty feet wide and twelve inches deep. Its banks were 

 fringed throughout with cotton-wood and willow thickets, with mesquite at the base of the 

 terraces. 



Below the gorge division, the valley opens out in a broad plain, increasing in width as the 

 Pimas villages are approached. This bottom is covered with dense groves of mesquite, with 

 occasional intervening patches of grass, which, however, become less frequent as the river is 

 descended. 



Starting then from the mouth of the San Pedro wehave si.xty-three miles to the Pimas villages, or 

 rather to the point (Camp O'J) where the survey of 1854 leaves the river, and a difference of 

 elevation between these points of 749 feet, giving, therefore, an average descent of 11.9 feet per 



