282 HYPSOMETRIC ADDENDA.. 



New Spain (northern half), as derived from the journal of 

 the missionary Father Escalaute, who attempted (1777) to 

 penetrate the unknown country from Santa Fe of New 

 Mexico to Monterey of the Pacific Ocean. South-east of 

 the Lake Timpanogos is the chain of the Wha-satch Moun- 

 tains ; and in this, at the place where Humboldt has written 

 Montagues de sel gemme, this mineral is found." (Fremont, 

 Geogr. Mem. of Upper California, 1848, pp. 8 and 67 ; 

 compare Humboldt, Essai politique, T. ii. p. 261.) 



A great historical interest attaches to this part of the 

 highland, and more particularly to the country round the 

 Lake of Timpanogos, which is perhaps the same with the 

 Lake of Teguayo, the ancestral seat of the Aztecs. In their 

 migration from Aztlan to Tula, and to the Yalley of Tenoch- 

 titlan (Mexico), this people made three halting places or 

 stations, at which the ruins of the Casas grandes are still to 

 be seen. The first sojourn of the Aztecs was at the Lake 

 of Teguayo, the second on the Rio Gila, and the third not 

 far from the Presidio de Llanos. Lieutenant Abert found 

 on the banks of the Gila the same immense number of frag- 

 ments of pottery ornamented with painting, and scattered 

 over a considerable tract of ground, which had astonished 

 the missionaries Francisco Garces and Pedro Fonte in that 

 locality. These remains of the products of human skill are 

 supposed to indicate the existence of a former higher civili- 

 sation in these now solitary regions. Remains of buildings 

 in the singular style of architecture of the Aztecs, and of 

 their houses of seven stories, are also found far to the east- 



