606 



Ex. Doc. No. 41. 



r 



Jfoveinher 19, ( 



Awoke at day-dawn, as 'usual, 'and 



found ice half an inch thick,. and the air very cold. We climb the 



table-bench again 30 feet, and travel until we 



ly 



the bottom of the Gila again, at the point of Bighorn mountain, 

 where Carson shot a doe of the Bighorn or mountain sheep. This 

 animal had. the face of the sheep, but with very short hair all over; 

 its horns were like, those of the common wether; its color in the 

 face, like t,he face of a dun cow; back and sides reddish grey, and 

 the buttocks white— the white running down with a distinct line of 

 demarcation to the hocks. The animal probably weighed 70 pounds- 

 it had a very short taij, about two-and a half inche°; the foot very 

 like a sheep; several of the males showed themselves on the cliffs, 

 up which they climbed with great facility; their horns were very 

 large, and their appeara^nce much different from the female; it is 

 said their horns sometimes weigh more than their bodies. The 

 mountain upon which they disappeared is a coarse amygdaloid of 

 gfanite and sienite, the current of which was a sort of granite, 

 probably the debritus. West of this point, there were strata of 

 dark-.colored slate, alternately with sandstone and coarse granite 

 amygdaloid, (their strata and their laminal;) the fields very much 

 broken; at one point dipping south; a hundred yards further, dip- 

 ping west, and again vertical; the mountain range was narrow, and 

 ran off southeast; and beyond, in that direction, it appeared to 

 change in character. The diluvion was the same as yesterday, ex- 

 cept that we^t of the Bighorn, it had more sand, which, in places, 

 had drifted into heaps. Distance, 19^ miles, west southwest. En- 

 camped on abundance of coarse grass, in what recently had been 



river, the channel being now a few hundred yards 

 north; the bottom of the river abounded in places incrusted with 



salt, and grown with a vegetable with round pulpy leaf, 

 peculiar to the salt plains. The same has been the 

 case since we lost sight of former habitations, render- 

 ing it probable that this land will not produce by cul- 

 Off the salt plains, the vegetation was very much the 



the bed of the 



tivation. 



\ 



\. 



same as above, but a little thinner; no timber on mountain or hill; 

 in fact. Bighorn did not support a shrub; the cotton- wood on the 

 border of the Gila, being the only apology ?or trees, and none of 

 them very large. In 1771, a Franciscan friar (Padre Garcez) de- 

 scribes the Gila as fringed with' plenty of young cotton-w-Qods, so 

 that he could hardly see the jriver. We passed a little cane in a 

 slough east of the point of the Bighorn, enough for- a dozen ani- 

 majs or so; which is the only place where any thing could hall for 

 a single night, except this. Several of our animals fell far to the 

 rear in coming to camp, and the only one of our beef cattle left 

 was not to be found this morning. From this out, then', our food 

 must be peas, beans, and corn, with mule-meat, if we>should find it 

 necessary to come to that. "" - . ■ ^ 



^o«£m6fr20,(FHday.) -The morning cool; ice formed in our 



Tessels; Captain Moore reports that one of his sick men had fallen 

 to the rear; orders were given to start one hour later than usual: 



ihe man came 



the night; 



h 



at a quarter past 9, and 



4 



