60 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. 
consisting partly of descendants of Mexican settlers of long ago and 
partly of descendants of local Indians with whom the Mexicans and 
others have intermarried. Spanish is the language of a large pro- 
portion of the population, and in many sections it greatly prepon- 
derates over English. A large number of Indians live in the several 
reservations in the State. 
Of the 78,485,760 acres of New Mexico, nearly half is public land, 
14,000,000 acres State land, 12,000,000 acres in ranches, 12,000,000 
acres in private grants and Indian reservations, and 9,000,000 acres in 
national forests. Somewhat less than 2,000,000 acres is cultivated, 
and less than 600,000 acres is irrigated. Of the irrigated area 
200,000 acres belongs to individuals or partnerships, 50,000 acres to 
commercial organizations, 300,000 acres to cooperative or commu- 
nity organizations, and 30,000 acres to Indians. |The remainder is 
irrigated under Government reclamation, and the area so served will 
be considerably increased when the lands below the Elephant Butte 
Dam are utilized. 
Probably the principal mineral resource of New Mexico is coal, 
which occurs in the large fields west of Raton, near Cerrillos, about 
Gallup, and in several minor areas. There are also mines of gold, 
copper, silver, lead, zinc, and a great variety of other minerals, clays, 
and building stones. The State contains also abundant supplies of 
underground water. 
New Mexico contains many ruins of settlements of aborigines, some 
of them of great antiquity. There were large villages at many places 
long before the coming of the Spaniards, and irrigation was exten- 
sively practiced. 
Just beyond the State line the train enters a tunnel half a mile 
long which extends under Raton Pass, at an altitude of 7,608 fect. 
For 30 years there was only one tunnel at this place, but a few years 
ago a second one was built. This pass is on the divide between the 
drainage basins of Arkansas River on the north and Canadian River 
on the south. The old Santa Fe Trail passed up the same canyon as 
the one followed by the railway and crossed through Raton Pass on 
the way south. 
The mountain which is crossed at Raton Pass is not part of the 
main range of the Rocky Mountains, but is a lateral spur which 
extends eastward for 30 miles. Its height is due largely to the thick 
cap of lava which covers the high mesas east of the railway. This 
rock is so hard that it has resisted erosion and so maintained the high 
ridge. Doubtless the lava-covered mesa was originally much more 
extensive than it is at present, for the removal of the underlying 
sandstone and shales undermines the lava sheet, large blocks of 
which occasionally fall from the cliffs to the talus shinee hades: The 
high mesa disappears about 35 miles east of Raton Pass, and the — 
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