/ 



Ex. Doc. No. 41. 70 



There ^vas a great deal of pottery 'ab'oiit our camp, and just above 

 us were the supposed remains of a large Indian settlement, differino- 

 very slightly from those already described. - * 



Moyemher S.— The whole day's journey was through a canon, and 

 the river was crossed twelve or fifteen times; The sand was deep, 

 and occasionally th« trail much obstructed by pebbles of paving- 

 stone. The willow grew so densely in many places as to stop our 

 progress, and oblige us to look for spots less thickly overgrown, 

 through which we could break. 



The precipices on each side were steep- the rock was mostly gra- 

 nite and a compact sandy limestone, with occasional seam's of ba- 

 salt and trapj and towards the end of the day, calcareous sand 

 stone, and a conglomerate of sandstone, feldspar, fragments of ba- 

 salt, pebbles, &c. The stratification was very confused and irreg- 

 ular, sometimes perfectly vertical but mostly dipping to the south- ' 

 west, at an angle of 30°. Vast boulders of pure quartz: the river, 

 m places, was paved with them. 



About two miles from camp, our course was traversed by a scam 

 •.of yellowish colored igneous rock, shooting up into irregular spires 

 and turrets, one or two thousand feet in height. It ran at right an- 

 gles to the river, -and extended to the north, and to the soutb, in a 

 chain of mountains as far * as the eye could reach. One of these 

 towers was capped with a substance, many hundred feet thick dis- 

 posed in horizontal s.trata of dilferent colors, from deep red to 

 light yellow. Partially disintegrated, and laying at the foot of the 



chain of spires, was a yellowish calcareous sandstone, altered by. 

 fire, in large amorphous masses. 



For a better description of this landscape, see the sketch by .Mr. 



Stanly. ' "^ ' . 



To the w-est, about a mile below us, and running parallel to the 

 nrst, IS another similar seam, cut through by the Gila, at a great 

 butte, shaped like a house. The top of this butte- appears to have 

 once formed the table land, and is still covered with vegetation. 

 Ihrough both thes^. barriers the river has been conducted by some 

 ofher means than attrition. Where it passes the first, it presents 

 the appearance of a vast wall torn downbyblows of a trip hammer 

 Under to-day's date, in. appendix ^o. 2, will be found many in- 

 teresting plants, but the principal growth was as usual, Pitahaya, 

 acacia, prosopis, Fremontia, and obione canescens. 



The latitude of this camp, which is within a mile of the spot ■ 

 where we take a final leave bf the m^ountains, is, by the mean of the 

 observations on north and south stars, polaris and beta aquarii, 33' 

 Oo' 40" J its longitude, derived by measurement- and also by the 

 chronometnc difference of meridian between this and the camp of 

 Novembei;-5th, is IIP 13' 10" west of Greenwich, and the height 

 ot the river at this point above the sea, as indicated by the barom- 

 eter, 1,751 feet. 



. -^* ^^g^^j for the first time since leaving Pawnee Fork, I was 

 interrupttd for a moment in my observations, by moisture collecting 

 On the glass of my horizon shade, showing; a degree of humidity in 



