396 Reminiscences of 



usual with these cavaliers. I looked for immediate 

 trouble, as Jack sneeringly remarked to Graham, 

 chagrined to find he was going along with us: "Well! 

 You can take me in now if you want to," but the 

 latter rode ahead without making any reply. 



I told Jack I would see Bebo, and we passed on, 

 leaving him cursing as we departed. I told Bebo 

 I could not do anything in the mine, without entering 

 into any further explanation, and we rode on to 

 the town of Algodones, further up the Rio Grande. 

 From this town we rode on to a valley a few miles 

 off the road in the hills to view the ruins of a former 

 Pueblo settlement, now entirely deserted, and which had 

 been for a long time. We were attracted to the place 

 by the accounts we had received of the wood petrifi- 

 cations there. We found a large number of petri- 

 fied trees, evidently palms, remnants of ages before, 

 when the palms evidently grew in profusion, while 

 now only stunted pines existed. 



The evidence was conclusive that in some early 

 period the climate of this region was semitropical, 

 and that this condition existed not only here, but 

 for hundreds of miles further north ; and at the pres- 

 ent day broken fragments of palm-tree petrifications 

 can be gathered below the foot-hill regions on the 

 plains beyond the present city of Denver, in Colorado, 

 at places quite plentiful. 



We found in the valley we visited, immense palm- 

 tree petrifications, whole trunks of trees several feet 

 in diameter, and scattered in profusion over a larger 

 area, fragments of Indian pottery, showing that at 

 one time the region must have been largely inhab- 

 ited by a lost race, of which no history exists. Great 



