19 



Camp on Pecos River, 



Jwm 4, 1858. 



Sir: I have the honor to report that abundant springs of living 

 water have been discovered on the summit of the Llano Estacado, 

 fifty miles due east from this camp, and about half way between the 

 Pecos and the Mustang springs. An exploring party which I sent 

 out some days since returned to-day, after having carefully explored 

 the country eastward from this place, and have found a hard firm 

 road over the entire distance to these springs. From this camp in a 

 due easterly course to the Mustang springs, is a distance of ninety- 

 five miles, with a hard gravelly road over the entire distance, and all 

 trouble about crossing this plain is not only entirely obviated by this 

 discovery, but a saving of distance amounting to at least eighty-five 

 miles has been effected. 



Two hundred of these springs, some of them thirty yards in circum- 

 ference, have been found extending in a direction north and south 

 over a space of nine miles. Everywhere in the neighborhood of the 

 water Ave found groves of willow trees thirty feet high, and from four 

 to six inches in diameter. They will furnish abundantly the material! 

 necessary for constructing the stations which may be required. 



The existence and character of these springs are exceedingly 

 peculiar and difficult to be accounted for. 



Commencing about three miles north of the 32d parallel of latitude, 

 and fifty miles east of the Pecos at this camp, is a range of abrupt 

 white sand hills, seventy or eighty feet higher than the surface of the 

 plain, which extends in a direction a little east of south for about fifty 

 miles. To the east, west, and north, the country descends rapidly 

 from the summit or back-bone of these sand hills, which is the highest 

 line for ten or fifteen miles in any direction. Along the very summit 

 of this ridge issue the springs I have mentioned, bubbling up through 

 beds of loose white sand of indefinite, or rather undetermined depth. 

 They are not at all affected by surface rains, as there is not the 

 slightest evidence on the banks of their ever rising or falling, and 

 the surface drainage is from them in all directions. 



As I have stated the line of these springs or pools has been 

 traced for nine miles towards the south, exhibiting in this distance 

 two hundred considerable pools of water. In most cases the pools 

 are from three to four feet in depth, but in some of the larger ones 

 the depth is six feet. The water is perfectly transparent, and free 

 from impurities. There seems to have been originally a considerable 

 stream of running water, resembling Delaware creek in character, 

 that is, a succession of deep pools connected by a swift running 

 stream some tw^o feet wide, and Avith perpendicular banks about three 

 feet high. The sand seems to have drifted before the violent winds 

 along the course of the stream until it has entirely covered the small 

 narrow streams connecting the ponds. This could readily have been 

 done, as the flags, bullrushes, and cane grow so thick and matted 

 along these narrow threads of water as completely to overlap each 

 other from both sides, so that even along Delaware creek the narrow 



