Ex. Doc. No. 41. 



573 



the 

 t the 



» 



J 



4 



wood; the hills and out-counfry as desolate-looking as before; 



most of the grass in the bottoms is oL^a harsh character; bu. 



grama abounds on the hills. We passed several places where the 

 volcanic atti on "\y-as perceptible; near camp, the hills are ^capped 

 with a rim of^black basaltic rock, some of five feet thick; about 

 two miles from this evening's camp, passed the ruins of an old vil- 

 lage, probably Valverde; there were no signs of houses, except 

 the piles of dirt and pieces of pottery scattered about. 

 f October 8. — Marched at 8; distance, 18| miles; the bottom of the 



/Bel Norte grows narrower, and we had much rough road and sand; 

 the thojny mezquite and other bushes making it necessary to have a 

 pioneer party with axes to clear the road; we halted at a dense 

 thicket of willows, in which we saw a flock of wild turkeys; passed 

 the commencement of the Jornada of 100 miles without water on 

 the Chihuahua road; on the other side of the Del Norte, it is sepa- 

 rated from us by a high volcanic mountain. The mountains along 

 here seem to get more lofty; occasional seams of dark basalt or 

 trap are seen, but most of the peaks are composed of lighter col- 

 ored lava or trap, thrust up as granite usually is, and changed to a 

 reddish color by exposure of its surface- *The back-bone of North 

 America appears to have split open along here, and all the igneous 

 rocks have been thrust up with a general parallelism, without mak- 



t 



I 



g a continuous 



The waters of the Bel 



range along this seam. 

 J^orte run (while the waters of the Arkansas, the Gila, and other 

 streams flow east and wf^t) directly from it. An experienced trav- 

 eller in these regions tells^me that a fine road could be gotten from 

 some place about here to the frontier settlements of Texas, on its 

 fi-ed river. 



If so, the future city of New Mexico must be about the 

 south end of the Jornalla mountain* "" "'^'^ 



We are now near 200 miles 



<Jown the Del Norte from Santa Fe, but the stream is still unfit for 

 ^^y purposes of navigation.- Carson tells us that, at the rate we 

 are travelling, we will not get to Angelos in four months. 



October 9. -Marched at 8, after repairing- the hound 'of one of 



C company's wagons, which broke at 'dark last night; our road all 

 y was Very rough, and 



da 



„ _ made but little progress with the 



wagons; i'n ml e* p r^c"e' t"h e guides were two hours hunting a route 



•-■---*---' - ° apped with basalt; the basalt 



-f a dark color, containing, 



probably, a large portion of iron. 



was seamed in various ways 



h 



IS c 



^<^'M^. 



^Ith a light colored substance, which divided the mass into irregu- 

 lar spheroids. Some of the basalt was cellular, some solid; in alJ, 

 about eight feet thick. In another place, the same seam fel into a 

 follow, and was about fifteen feet thick, with an irregular columnal 

 structure: near this was a mass of volcanic cinder. Ihis basan, or 

 trap, capping the hills, is^one of tho reasons Y^y/'^'''"T5p/',nd 

 difficult in this country; as this, coupled with the loose graj^I and 

 sand in which the feet of the animals sink, makes a wagon drag 

 heavily; and already we begin to hear of resorting to packs. >> e 

 passed to-day a remarkable mass of conglomerate, which had t>een 



