576 



Ex. Doc. Ncy. 41. 



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October 15. ^Marched at 85 and after four miles of rough travel- 

 lings we turned more to the west, and took a final departure from 

 the Rio Del Norte: its rugged gravel hills and harsh bottom grass, 

 tasting of salt, has not made us regret leaving it. We ascended 

 near two hundred feet at once, to an elevated plain, deeply cut 

 with the cafionS|Of this sjream, which we came to, encamping on 

 th-e third: these proved to be great obstructions, and^would have 

 detained, us very long if we had brought our wagons. T^he gravel 

 on the slopes of the banks was at an angle of about thirty degrees, 

 and it would be difficult to get a passage around it. ' The guides 

 of Captain Cooke went to seek a crossing for these creeks near 

 their junction wnth the Del Norte, From the south bank of the 

 third creek on which we encamped, no doubt a practicable wagon 

 road could be obtained to the banks of the Del Norte. The table 

 land is fine, and upon it a good route could be made. We entered 

 upon a country to-day with many varieties of plants strange to us, 

 and of a more tropical aspect — a new variety of walnut, oak, hack- 

 berry, birch. The gravel beds of alluvion near camp have turned 

 to^ stone, and a deep cut or caiion, of fifty feet deep and twenty feet 

 wide, affords a passage for the stream on which we have encamped, 

 which, for a short distance, is a fine leaping mountain stream, with 

 oyerhanging trees and fish playing in its waters; it then sinks in 

 the sand, and all is arid again. Distance 24 miles to one creek; 1 

 mile to second; 14 miles to third; 6 miles. Course SSW.; the trail 

 is very plain. - ^ 



October 16. — Marched at 8, and found ourselves approaching the 

 lesser peaks of the Sierra de los Mimbres, and, passing through 

 them, we found the country very beautiful, With mountain streams 

 at intervals of four or five miles all day, and a smaller growth of 

 walnut and a sort of live oak shaded the rivulets; all else was 

 prairie covered with the finest grama grass. *We occasionally found 

 the road rocky, but it was very good. The growth of live o^k, in 

 stunted -shrubs, covered some of the mountain peaks to their tops, 

 others were entirely bare. The Mimbres chain to the west look 

 black in the distance as the vegetation. The leaves of some cot- 



n 



in the 



October sun; the grama grass looks faded, but it is now in the seed, 

 and furnishes fine food for our animals. There are two kinds of 

 grama grass — the summer and winter; the first is now^ too dry for 

 much use as pasture; the latter may be said to be best. We passed 

 limestone strata to-day, which had a dip east, and showed the ac- 

 tion of heat; the limestone blue and compact. The hills appeared 

 to be all scarped to the west, like the teeth of a saw. From a peak 



two miles southeast of camp the view presented >vas very grand; 

 and twenty to thirty miles wide, covered with grass lays below, 

 the valley of the Del Norte widening to the south as far as El PasOj 



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