LAGUNA COLORADO. Ill 



If it be impracticable to construct and find the material for sustain- 

 ing a railway across this desert, the question arises whether a feasible 

 route can be found near the northern or southern borders of it. 



The road which was made under my supervision from Fort Smith, 

 Arkansas, to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1849, (with one exception, where 

 it crosses a spur, which can easily be turned,) skirts the base of the 

 northern border of this plain ; and so far as the topography of the coun- 

 try is concerned, I believe that a railroad can be made over it with great 

 facility, as the general surface is smooth, and intersected by no impass- 

 able mountains or deep valleys. 



On departing from Fort Smith, this road traverses a gently undulating 

 district, sustaining a heavy growth of excellent timber, but occasion- 

 ally interspersed with prairie lands, affording luxuriant grass for eight 

 months in the year, and intersected with numerous small streams 

 flowing over a highly productive soil, thus embracing the elements 

 of a rich and beautiful pastoral and agricultural locality. This char- 

 acter continues for one hundred and eighty miles, to near the 99th 

 meridian of longitude, where the road emerges from the woodlands 

 and enters the great plains, where but little timber is seen except 

 directly along the borders of the water-courses. The soil soon becomes 

 thin and sandy, and, owing to the periodical droughts of the summer 

 season, would require artificial irrigation to make it available for culti- 

 vation. 



Soon after leaving the woodlands the road takes a ridge which 

 divides the Canadian from the Washita river, and continues upon it to 

 near the sources of the latter stream, a distance of nearly three hundred 

 miles. This ridge lies in a very direct course for Santa Fe, is firm and 

 smooth, and makes one of the best natural roads I have ever travelled 

 over. The ground upon each side is cut up into a succession of deep 

 and precipitous gullies, which have been washed out by the continued 

 action of water in such a manner as to render any other route in the 

 vicinity, but the one directly upon the crest of the " divide," almost 

 impassable. 



From the head of the Washita the road continues near the valley of 

 the Canadian for a hundred miles further, occasionally crossing small 

 tributaries which furnish the traveller with water at convenient distances ; 

 it then bears to the left, and passes over the elevated lauds bordering the 

 Pecos river, skirting the base of the mountains along that stream until 

 it arrives at a place called " Laguna Colorado," a small lake of muddy 

 water, where the road forks, one branch leading to Santa Fe over a road 

 forty miles in length, and the other to Albuquerque, (the point where 



