256 nciNmr or bear river. 



that guard it from the world without. The only feasible entrance if 

 upon the east side through a remarkable canon sixty yards wide, formed bv 

 craggy rocks six or eight hundred feet in altitude, succeeded by a still 

 narrower and more precipitous one, towering to a height of twelve or fifteen 

 hundred feet. 



This valley is intersected by Green river, which, emerging from the lofty 

 ridges above, and tracing its way through the narrow and frightful canons 

 below, here presents a broad, smooth stream, fifty or sixty yards wide, with 

 iloping banks, and passably well timbered. 



Here all the various wild fruits indigenous to the country are found in 

 ffieat abundance, with countless multitudes of deer, elk, and sheep. 



The soil is of a dark loam, very fertile and admirably adapted to cultiva- 

 tion. Vegetation attains a rank growth and continues green the entire 

 year. 



Spring wedded to summer seems to have chosen this sequestered spot 

 for her fixed habitation, where, when dying autumn woos the sere frost and 

 snow, of winter she may withdraw to her flov/er-garnished retreat and 

 smile and bloom forever. 



The surrounding mountains are from fifteen hundred to two thousand 

 feet high, and present several peaks where snow claims an unyielding do- 

 minion year after year, in awful contrast with the beauty and loveliness 

 that lies below. 



Few localities in the mountains are equal to this, in point of beautiful and 

 romantic scenery. Every thing embraced in its confines iend.3 to inspire 

 die beholder with commingled feelmgs of awe and admiration. 



Its long, narrow gate-way, walled in by huge impending rocks, for hun- 

 dreds of feet in altitude, — the lofty peaks that surround it, clothed in eternal 

 snow, — the bold stream traversing it, whose heaving b(3som pours sweet 

 music into the ears of listening solitude, — the verdant lawn, spreading far 

 and wide, garnished with blushing wild-flowers and arrayed in the habili- 

 ments of perennial spring, — ail, all combine to invest it with an enchant- 

 ment as soul-expanding in its subhmity as it is fascinating in its loveliness. 



The country contiguous to Bear river, back from the valleys, is generally 

 rugged and sterile. Sometimes the surface for a considerable extent is 

 entirely destitute of vegetation, and presents a dreary waste of rocks, or clay 

 hardened to a stone-like consistency by the sun's rays. Nov/ and then a 

 few dwarfish pines and cedars meet the eye amid the surrounding desola- 

 tion, and occasional clusters of coarse grass intervene at favoring depres- 

 sions among the rocks. 



FARTHEST northern extremity of Mexico, where the Une between the two countrie* 

 shall commence, and thence run due west to the Pacific ? 



But, instead of being in lat. 42'^ north, the source of the Arkansas is in lat. 39* 

 iiorlli, as indi.-putably ascertained from recent explorations, and thus an interval of 

 three degrees occurs between the two points named in the above treaty ! 



If the United States are obligated by this treaty to receive the 42d degree as their 

 ■outhern boundary, Mexico is equally obligated to receive the parallel from the souroo 

 of the Arkansas due west to the Pacific, as her true northern limitB ; thus, a tenitocy 

 ti eleven hundred and twenty- five miles frota east to west, and neaxly one huodni 

 ■ad forty from north to south, u left unowned by eitiier party 1 



