NARRATIVE. 5 



hills. This tract, as I have said, has in part been reclaimed 

 and brought under cultivation. Originally it was covered 

 with low-growing gray-green chenopodiaceous and composite 

 shrubs, such as constitute what is commonly called sage 

 brush. Those portions not under cultivation exhibit these 

 growths, intermixed with clumps of bushy Amelanchier and 

 Peraphyllum representing the family of the Pomacese; and 

 it also supports a peculiar and most interesting herbaceous 

 flora, made up of Lupinus argenteus and other lupines, 

 numerous species of Astragalus and other papilionacese, 

 several Pentstemons and Castilleias, Allium acuminatum 

 and Calochortus Gunnisonii representing the lily family. 



The pinon belt occupies the low foothills from 1 00 to 400 

 or 500 feet above the valley. Here Pinus edulis and Juni- 

 perus monosperma combine in not unequal proportions to 

 form a low scraggy woodland growth. Neither species often 

 exceeds twenty feet in height, and each is frequently 

 adorned by its own species of parasitic Razoumoffskia and 

 Phoradendron. Herbage is scanty in this belt, and the her- 

 baceous species quite characteristic, like Lescuriella Palmeri, 

 Pentstemon linarioides, Astragalus scopulorum and Picradenia 

 Richardsonii. 



Our belated Mississippian, Professor Tracy, arrived in the 

 morning of June 26 and we started at once for the western 

 flank of Mt. Hesperus, our wagon piled high with boxes of 

 paper, presses, bundles of driers and camp equipage. Our 

 plan was to make a somewhat permanent camp as near 

 timber line as we could go with a wagon, and then to take 

 time to thoroughly explore the country both above and 

 below. Our road started due north from Mancos but soon 

 bore northeast and followed up a rather narrow ridge or 

 divide between the deep rocky canon of the West Mancos 

 on the right, and Chicken Creek, a smaller tributary of the 



