78 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. 
that of a small canal boat. They carried a load of domestic cottons, 
silks, hardware, etc., which they were able to sell at 50 to 100 per 
cent profit. This high rate was necessary considering not only the 
long and perilous journey of transportation but also the import tax 
that was levied upon these merchantmen of the plains by the Mexican 
authorities—an exorbitant duty, sometimes as high as 100 per cent. 
This entry duty was succeeded by another duty on the money carried 
away, so the early traders frequently invested their gains in beaver 
skins, which passed through free and yet netted a good profit on sale 
in St. Louis. 
At the ruins of San Cristobal (cris-toe’bahl), which is only about 7 
miles south of Lamy and is easily reached by a good road through the 
Pankey ranch, there are sandstone cliffs marked with many well- 
preserved Indian pictographs. They are opposite the site of San 
Cristobal pueblo, which has recently been extensively excavated. 
The pictographs were apparently traced by a hard-pointed stone or 
arrowhead. Pictures were of great importance to the Indians, not 
‘a 
CERRO se? ,e 
COLORADO yet x 
<2 9 
= Ww 
2 SS Nk 
9 \O & 
ar’ Nase ve i 
7 Vie ae Vy 
Figure 14.—Section across Galisteo Valley at Lamy, N. Mex. 
only those on rocks but the markings on their own bodies. The 
body markings often acted as personal badges—of bravery, mar- 
riage, freedom, or slavery—and in the same way, it is believed, most 
of the rock pictures recorded the achievement of some individual. 
Just west of Lamy station shales and limestones of Upper Creta- 
ceous age (Mancos) are well exposed, dipping steeply eastward, and 
the Dakota sandstone and underlying Morrison shale crop out half a 
mile north of the station. On the east side of the flat east of the 
village these rocks are cut off by a prolongation of the fault which 
passes down Apache Canyon. East of this fault rise steep slopes of 
the red beds which underlie the high mesa extending southward from 
Glorieta Mesa. The relations of the rocks at Lamy are shown in 
figure 14. 
The prominent butte just south of Lamy, known as Cerro Colorado, 
consists of Mesaverde sandstones overlying the Mancos shale. These 
sandstones dip southwestward and underlie the country on both 
sides of the railway for some distance. They are exposed exten- 
sively in railway cuts and form prominent ridges along the railway 
at intervals from Lamy to and beyond Kennedy. 
