[22 Batchelder. Wintei Notes from Nezv Mexico. [April 



of ice is being harvested for the use of the hotels at the Hot 



Springs. The nights are quite cool, so that a thick skim of ice 

 is formed nearly every night on water that is not in motion, but 

 it disappears like magic before the morning sun. During the 

 latter part of December there were several slight snowstorms, 

 but the hot sun and dry air soon left no traces of them save in 

 shaded spots out of reach of the sunshine. In the middle of the 

 winter there is doubtless some severe cold, as would naturally be 

 expected at such an altitude. 



Just below the Hot Springs the canon of the Gallinas gradually 

 broadens out. and the hills become lower and farther apart before 

 they finally sink into the plains and the canon comes to an end. 

 The stream itself first runs between low blurt's where it has cut 

 its way through a small plateau of superficial grayed deposits, 

 and then spreads itself out oyer a shallow, stony bed wdiere the 

 valley widens out as it approaches the broad plains that stretch 

 indefinitely to the south and east, broken only here and there 

 by some outlying low hill whose flat-topped ridge and steep, 

 deeply eroded sides give it the appearance at a distance of 

 a huge fortification. 



In the lower part of its course the flow of the river is impeded 

 in various places by rude dams made out of brush by the Mexi- 

 can inhabitants of several little adobe villages. Small ponds arc- 

 thus formed from which run ditches carrying the water to irrigate 

 their outlying fields. 



Above the springs the cafion narrows, and winds along for 

 many miles shut in by steep, rounded hills, on whose barren 

 sides only a scanty vegetation obtains a foothold among the 

 gravel and loose stones and occasional ledges that form their sur- 

 face. These hills are here and there varied by perpendiculai 

 cliffs that tow T er above the stream, while every now and then one 

 comes upon a narrow ravine or side-canon that winds its way 

 back between the hills, gradually rising and becoming narrower 

 and with steeper sides as it gets farther from the main canon 

 until it ends high up among the hills. These ravines are usually 

 dry, though in some a feeble little stream struggles to exist. 



The canon itself varies greatly in its width. In some places 

 the hills crowd down upon it until there is hardly room for a 

 footpath between the brawling stream and the steep rocky sides. 

 Again the hills retreat, and the canon opens out into a little 



