28 VALLEY OF THE COLORADO.—LLANO ESTACADO. 
For fuel, or for ties for a railroad, it is eminently adapted, and exists in an abundance which 
many years will diminish but little. "The yearly burning of the prairies has very seriously 
obstructed the growth of this timber, as was sufficiently apparent in the scorched and blackened 
forests west of the Colorado; but settlement and a protection from these yearly conflagrations 
will readily put a stop to this destrüétion, and will insure a vast increase of timber over this 
region within a few years. 
The entire region thus drained by the principal rivers of Texas is adapted, from soil and 
climate, to the cultivation of cotton, hemp, corn, wheat, and tobacco; but from its peculiar 
character, cotton would doubtless be the most valuable and general of its productions. 
I have not dwelt at much length upon the agricultural features of this region, since it differs 
but little from the settled districts of Arkansas or Missouri; and I refer those who are desirous 
of more detailed knowledge of the character and productiveness of the soils to the tables of 
analyses appended to this report. 
From the valley of the Red river at Preston we have thus traversed, over a distance of three 
hundred and fifty-four miles, a belt of well-timbered and fertile country, which projects, like a 
great peninsula, into the vast deserts of the plains, and have reached a point within two hundred 
and eighty-five miles of the Rio Grande at El Paso. This remarkable natural feature of the 
country cannot have escaped the attention of the thousands of persons who, since the discovery 
of gold in California, have been seeking, with constantly increasing interest, an easily practi- 
cable route to the Pacific; and the existence of the ‘‘Staked Plain," without water, which 
interposes between the western limit of this wooded peninsula and the valley of the Rio Grande, 
has proved, in the absence of the labor and expense of boring for water, which are beyond the 
means of the emigrant, an obstacle sufficient to counterbalance these advantages and to divert 
the emigration to different routes. This obstacle is readily and easily removed, and it is to be 
hoped, in every view, that the estimates for that purpose which I shall present will be favorably 
considered by the department. ; 
The Llano Escatado.—Of the agricultural resources of the ‘‘Staked Plain’’ but little can be 
said. Itisa high and nearly level table-land, elevated, at its highest line, about 4,700 feet 
above the level of the sea, and about 500 feet above the headwaters of the Colorado of Texas. 
It is nearly two hundred miles in width at its widest point, and extends from the vicinity of 
the 30th to near the 35th parallel of latitude. On the line of survey it is one hundred and 
twenty-five miles in width from the valley of the Pecos to the head of the Colorado, and is des- 
titute of water and of timber. Beds of dark-red sand alternate over its surface with patches of 
hard, pebbly ground, upon which is imposed a thin layer of decomposed gypsum. Over the 
hard surface the grama-grass is good and abundant, but the belts of sand are overgrown with a 
coarse bunch-grass about two and a half feet high. 
More than one-half of the surface of the plain, along the line of survey, is hard and firm, and - 
furnishes grama-grass in abundance, and the mezquite-root entirely sufficient to supply fuel 
for all parties crossing it, in whatever numbers. There is no evidence, in natural features, of 
its existence on approaching from the east or west, and the ascent to its summit and descent from 
it are so gentle as only to be perceptible to instrumental survey. There are many beds of small 
lakes and ponds which were dry in the month of March, but which probably contain water 
during the rainy seasons. There is no living water in its entire extent. It presents remarkable 
natural advantages of surface for a road, and a supply of water, which can be readily obtained 
by boring, would adapt it in a high degree to the support of stock. 
Although altogether deficient in important agricultural resources, it is nevertheless rich in 
the immense beds of gypsum which crop out along the Pecos, in bluff banks of selenite fifty feet 
high, and of a translucency which renders it valuable to the people of New Mexico, who use it 
for glass. Numerous caves of pure gypsum, of dazzling whiteness within, are found in this . 
entire gypsum formation, which extends over a distance of one hundred and fifty miles along 
the route, and forms probably the largest gypsum fieldin the world. As an article of commerc 
