TO JUNCTION OF GRAND AND GREEN RIVERS. 73 



in the greatest confusion. These hills are covered with noble forests of yellow pine, with 



open intervals where grama and Imneli grass grow with great luxuriance. Between the 

 lulls are charming mountain valleys, carpeted with fine grass, in the summer season 

 perfect gardens of flowers, through which meander cool and sparkling mountain 

 streams, fringed with thickets of willow, or shaded by groves of the narrow-leaved 

 COttonwood. Through this delightful region our route lay, going from Santa'Fe" 

 toward the Colorado. On our return we traversed the third of the districts 1 have 

 enumerated, that of the table-lands. Where unaffected by the disturbing forces 

 which have elevated the mountain chains, the sedimentary rooks lie nearly horizontal, 

 forming a wide plateau deeply canoned by the streams which take their rise in the 

 mountains. 



Although the generalities of the country of the foot-hills, with which we at present 

 have to do, may be given in few words, perhaps a more detailed description will be 

 needed ti convex- all the information that may be sought of a region destined to become 

 the home of many of our countrymen, and, therefore, of considerable economical and 

 political importance. For the purpose of satisfying the want I have anticipated, I shall, 

 from lime to time, copy from -my journal such detailed descriptions of local scenery or 

 structure as may seem best fitted to complete the picture I have already sketched. 

 From my mites made at our camp on the Rio Navajo, sixteen miles west of Laguna 

 de los Cavallos, I take the following extracts: 



"From the Laguna our route westward passed through a beautiful -and fertile 

 countrv, the trail winding among hills composed of Upper Cretaceous rocks, covered 

 with trees of yellow pine, often attaining large size. On the south is a high mesa,, with 

 picturesque broken edges, a continuation of that east of the Laguna bordering the 

 valley of the Chama. On the north is a similar wall in which the strata are more highly 

 inclined. IJevond this is another valley or series of valleys which border the bases of 

 the mountains connected on the east with the Tierra Maria, a charming spot at the 

 forks of the Chama, where the Mexicans had formerly a settlement, now abandoned 

 on account of the depredations of the Indians. The drainage toward the west begins 

 a mile -west of the Laguna, and the Ri<*Navajo is the first of the tributaries of the San 

 Juan. This is a small but rapid stream which rises in the Sierra del Navajo, of which the 

 southern extremity is but a few miles distant from our camp. This range apparently 

 forms the divide north of the Laguna, the drainage of its eastern slope falling into the 

 Chama, its western forming the Rio Navajo. The material washed down from the 

 Sierra del Navajo is mostly eruptive in character, trap, trachyte, and porphyry, and 

 the outlines of this extremity of the range show that it is mainly composed of rocks of 

 this character, .lust above our cam]) the river issues from a magnificent wooded 

 goi-o'e, which it has cut through the chain of Cretaceous hills that 1 have mentioned 

 as bordering our route of to-day on the right, A little below our camp is an isolated 

 mesa, an outlier of the great table-lands which spread out to the south. This mesa, 

 called by our guide the Cerro del Navajo, has a superficial area of perhaps 100 acres, 

 a relative altitude of l,. r )()0 or 1,600 feet, and an absolute altitude of about 8,500 feet. 

 It is entirely composed of the Middle and Upper Cretaceous rocks, lying nearly hori- 

 zontal, and stands a stupendous monument of the erosion which this region has suffered. 



10 s K 



