176 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [fEB. 15, 



of the main range. It was simply grand, a climate of perpetual 

 spring amid the wildest mountains. On one side of the valley 

 there was an isolated peak covered only with grass and different 

 in formation from the others. It was of light colored rough 

 decomposing material, a syenite or perhaps an andesite. I have 

 occasion to remember it well. Toward evening I climbed up one 

 of its lower spurs to see the sunset, stayed longer than I thought, 

 and presently was in the dark. It appeared to be an easy 

 thing to go down again but on the way I fell head first into a 

 deep gully. Fortunately, I was more frightened than hurt, and 

 on reaching a party who were out looking for me was told that 

 there were openings in the mountains hundreds of feet deep. 

 Next day I explored that mountain, and learned that there are 

 indeed some pits and narrow gullies in it, but they are not hun- 

 dreds of feet deep by any means. One near the top of the 

 mountain might have been of considerable depth, and others 

 were deep enough to make an end of any one who fell in them. 



The pit from which I had escaped was fifteen to twenty feet 

 deep, quite sufficient to do serious damage, and, to my mind at 

 least, was ample demonstration that at this point there were im- 

 mense masses of decomposing material entirely different from 

 the peaks and ridges of granite lying all about them. Tlie pits 

 and gullies are formed in this mountain by the erosion of exces- 

 sive rains which make a superficial cut, and then find drainage 

 through the decomposing material to a series of springs at the 

 foot of the mountain. 



After stopping a short time with the coffee planters, we started 

 on the road again for still higher places. 



We had a rough scramble over a mountain called El Barco, 

 lying just beside the mountain of which I have spoken. It was 

 composed of a somewhat similar material, with outcroppings of 

 dark basic and granitic rocks along its sides. Crossing over El 

 Barco we came to the high mountain valley of the Rio Ancho. 

 Here everything was granite, and some of the peaks were great 

 solid masses of this rock rising several thousand feet with places 

 where there was hardly any irregularity, just smooth masses of 

 rock almost to the top. 



To the west all the mountains were of this character, but to 

 the east on the range connecting with El Barco and the moun- 

 tain in which the openings were noted there were stretches of 

 decomposing material, and lighter colored rocks, under varying 

 conditions. Further up toward the Indian city of San Miguel 

 all the mountains were of intensely hard crystalline types, granite 

 predominating. 



The valley of the Rio Ancho extends to the very base of the 



