GEOLOGY 131 



this soil to equal in fertility like residual soil of any locality 

 the world over. Valley lands like those of the Bluewater, 

 San Mateo, and San Jose Valleys, are under present .condi- 

 tions, much more to be desired than Mesa lands near the 

 same locality or under similar situations, but let the water 

 which now courses down these valleys be conserved by suit- 

 able dams and be distributed by irrigation ditches at opp- 

 ortune seasons and small fruit farms, garden truck, orchards, 

 or ranches will furnish occupations /or thousands of peo- 

 ple and feed a very dense population. Practically all that is 

 necessary to bring about these ends in these localities and 

 many more similar places of New Mexico is conserved water, 

 a plow, and a determined settler. 



THE ENCHANTED MESA. 



About twenty-five miles south of Mt Taylor is the Acoma 

 country and its enchanted mesa. In the first text books of 

 Physical Geography that were written, the enchanted mesa 

 was on of the interesting pictures of an interesting pheno- 

 mena the erosive work of water. Once its top afforded pro- 

 tection to a harassed people, today its top with its scrub 

 cedars and pinons, affords a refuge for scores of eagles and 

 others of the bird family. The Enchanted Mesa stands 

 alone, clear and free from all other erosion remnants which 

 are scattered about over the valley and which once helped to 

 make up the whole of the massive sandstone formation of 

 which each is now a part. The Mesa is braced by ba.nks of 

 talus on all sides, above which sheer walls rise scores of feet 

 to the flat pan-cake like top. The enchanted mesa seems to 

 have made a determined stand against the invading processes 

 of weathering. This mesa was chosen for text books, not alone 

 for its perfect illustration of this type of topographic pheno- 

 mena but because it is a classic example of a process that 

 will occur under any similar conditions of uplifted land sur- 

 faces to a plateau elevation and the subsequent removal of 

 the parts most easily eroded. Composed entirely of a fairly 

 hard, compact, gray and buff sandstone of several acres in 

 extent this interesting topographic feature is doomed very 

 soon, geologically, to the erosive and valley making processes 

 now so dominant over this locality. 



Acoma, the Indian Pueblo, which is situated on a mesa 



