﻿NO. 15 SMITHSONIAN EXPLORATIONS, I92I 25 



In April, Mr. C. W. Gilmore. the Associate Curator of Vertebrate 

 Paleontology was authorized to undertake a trip into New Mexico, 

 " for the purpose of making collections of geological material for 

 the National ^luseum and determining the advisability of preserving 

 certain lands in northern New Mexico for national monumental pur- 

 poses." Mr. Gilmore was obliged to report that : 



Since the many square miles of " bad lands " surrounding the reserved area 

 are equally fossiliferous and in places present much more favorable territory 

 for the recovery of fossil remains than any observed within the boundaries 

 of the monument, and also since the greater part of these surrounding areas 

 lie within Pueblo Grants over which federal control has been relinquished, 

 there would be no advantage in retaining governmental control of so small a 

 part of the area as is represented in the proposed monument. 



]\Ir. Gilmore did, however, find a contiguous fossiliferous area in 

 the Santa Clara Pueblo Grant and secured for the museum a well- 

 preserved skull and other bones of a small rhinoceros, and in an ad- 

 joining Pojoaque Pueblo area remains of an extinct camel. The 

 most promising area for collecting would appear to lie within land 

 grants over which the government has at present no control. 



In January, this same year, Mr. J. W. Gidley, Assistant Curator 

 in this Division, was authorized in cooperation with the United States 

 Geological Survey to conduct field explorations in the San Pedro and 

 Sulphur Springs Valleys of southern Arizona and on the completion 

 of this work to visit the La Brea asphalt deposits of southern Cali- 

 fornia and from there go to Agate, in Nebraska, for the purpose 

 of securing other exhibition material. The work in Arizona was 

 eminently successful, Mr. Gidley shipping some 24 boxes having 

 an aggregate weight of 5,000 pounds. The bulk of this collection, he 

 reports represents " a practically new Pliocene fauna containing about 

 60 vertebrate species, most of which are mammalian." 



In detail Mr. Gidley reports essentially as follows : 



" The geological structure of the San Pedro A^alley will be published 

 in detail by Doctor Bryan of the United States Geological Survey. 

 It. however, may be noted here that this beautiful desert valley, now 

 drained by the Rio San Pedro (which, rising near the Mexican border, 

 runs nearly north-northwest, emptying into the Gila River, more than 

 a hundred miles away), narrows and deepens as it runs northward 

 from Benson leaving relatively small and scattered areas of sedi- 

 mentary deposits which may contain fossil vertebrate remains. Most 

 of our work, therefore, was confined to the upper valley, which forms 

 a rather wide basin bounded on the east by the Dragoon mountains, 

 on the west by the Whetstone Range, and on the south by the Tomb- 



