THE SANTA FE ROUTE, 79 
A short distance north of Kennedy the Santa Fe line is crossed 
by the New Mexico Central Railroad, which extends from Santa 
Fe, 25 miles north of Kennedy, to Torrence, on the El 
Paso & Southwestern system, 90 miles south. Just 
north of Kennedy the railway crosses a vertical dike 
of basalt which extends east and west across the 
country for a long distance, cutting the sandstone. Its width aver- 
ages about 30 feet, and, owing to the great resistance to erosion 
offered by the hard igneous rock, its course is marked by a distinct 
ridge from 30 to 100 feet high. 
Two miles east of Kennedy is the Mexican village of Galisteo, 
which was an important settlement two centuries ago. A short dis- 
tance north of it are numerous low red mounds with traces of walls 
marking the site of the Galisteo pueblo. In 1680, or at the time 
of the massacre, it had a population of about a thousand Tanos 
Indians under control of the Spaniards, who had erected a hand- 
some church. Six miles east, up the creek, was another pueblo, 
San Cristobal, now marked by extensive ruins. Galisteo remained 
prominent until late in the eighteenth century, when the Tanos, 
greatly depleted by smallpox and the depredations of the Comanches, 
removed to the village of Santo Domingo, on the Rio Grande, a 
little farther west, where their descendants now live, preserving their 
language and many customs. 
About 5 miles south of Kennedy is a prominent butte, known as 
Cerro Pelon (pay-lone’, Spanish for bald), which consists of a thick 
mass of igneous rock lying on sandstones. 
A few rods beyond Ortiz, at milepost 847, is a quarry where a rock 
known as breccia is taken out in large blocks to be used in protect- 
: ing the railway embankment at various places. This 
a breccia consists of angular masses of volcanic rocks 
tevation 5,820 feet. of various kinds mixed with more or less sand and 
oT dees cemented together into stone of considerable hard- 
hess. The*cementing agent is lime or silica deposited by under- 
ground water passing through the deposit. This rock crops out in 
extensive cliffs on the north side of the track for some distance on 
both sides of Ortiz. It is a member of the Galisteo sandstone 
(of probable Tertiary age), which occupies a basin of considerable 
area extending northward under the sands and clays known as Santa 
Fe marl. 
The name Ortiz, applied to various features in central New Mexico, 
belongs to a family which has been prominent in the history of the 
Southwest since the arrival of its founder with De Vargas’s expedition 
of conquest after the pueblo revolt of 1680-1692. 
A mile and a half beyond Ortiz siding the Ortiz Mountains are 
visible, 10 miles southwest of the railway. They consist of a thick 
Kennedy. 
Kansas City 859 miles. 
