GENERAL REMARKS ON THE TOPOGRAPRY. 115 
which passes over from Texas to Mexico, is known under the name of Sierra Madre. It is 
certain, and every one who has travelled across Mexico in that latitude knows it, that the 
Sierra Madre, in the sense generally adopted in that country, is not east, but is west of Durango, 
and is passed by the road from that city to Mazatlan. Of a mountain chain in New Mexico 
called Sierra Madre, and pretended to be situated on the western side of the Rio Grande, I 
have never heard. But if the name should occur there, too, as some, maps likewise have it, 
I am almost sure that it has only been used by some Mexican theorist, who wanted to convey 
a general idea of the geography of the country according to his own fancy." 
Mr. Froebel traces his Sierra Madre northwest, towards the Gila, and finally unites it with 
the Coast mountains of the Pacific; or, to use his own words: '* Thus the extreme northwestern 
spur of the Sierra Madre constitutes what has been called by geologists the San Bernardino 
range, but has been known to the old Californians under the name of Sierra Madre, as I have 
already stated. If, therefore, the Sierra Madre has a northern equivalent, we have to look for 
it, not in the Rocky mountains, but in the Sierra Nevada system.’ 
In Major Emory's Report on the Mexican Boundary Surveys, page 40, he says: ‘‘The idea 
conveyed by the name Sierra Madre is very generally adopted by the Mexicans, yet I doubt 
very much if any continuous range or chain of mountains can be found which separates the 
waters flowing into the Pacific from those flowing into the Atlantic. I am also quite well 
satisfied that the mountains known as Sierra Madre, in New Mexico, are not the same range as 
those known by that name in Chihuahua and Sonora, and that both are distinct from the range 
west and south of Monterey of the same name.’ ۱ 
We see from these extracts that there are two principal meanings attached to the words 
Sierra Madre—one is a “dividing line?" between the two great water-sheds of the continent, 
the other a mountain range. In this last sense it has been applied to so many different ranges 
that, to include them all, it must be considered a general name for the entire mountain system 
west of the Mississippi. 
An exhibition of the efforts which have been made to extend and generalize the name Rocky 
mountains, &c., would be attended with similar results. I have therefore disregarded all these 
generalizations on the general map, by giving to the mountains only their local names. 
