| TEJERAS CANON. 3 
“Wapper and breakfast of rusty bacon and very stale bread, we 
ja ounted our steeds and went our ways. 
j/ The coal vein we thus failed to visit is situated south-west 
Ip! f Carpenter’ s, not in the Tejeras Cafion proper, but in one of 
he western ravines of the Manzana Mountains, and is about 
. Peteck miles east of the Rio Grande. A surface specimen 
ziven to Dr. Le Conte by Colonel Watts at Santa Fé was of 
xcellent quality. 
# The road through the mountains down to the plain of the 
HRio Grande valley is very wild.and romantic. The rock 
“exposures are bold and imposing, towering up to the sky, 
and presenting great varieties of colour and outline; for some 
mare composed of masses of granite; some of sandstone, grey 
fand red; others are of smooth, shining, metamorphic rocks ; 
nd again, others consist of marbles beautifully variegated, 
yhite, pink, and grey, the fractures remaining bright and 
parkling for a very long time in the dry atmosphere of these 
egions. ‘When in the afternoon we had left the mountains 
#many miles to the east of us, on our way to Albuquerque, 
“and looked back at their sharply-cut sides, perfectly bare, 
precipitous, and jagged, brilliantly lighted up by the declining 
sun, the sight was very remarkable, and one long to be 
remembered. Not a tree is to be seen on the steep western 
lopes of the mountains, and if there be grass or other vegeta- 
ion here and there amongst the crevices, it is not noticeable 
t a distance; everywhere huge masses of variegated rock 
ise for thousands of feet above the plain, and throw their 
ver-varying shadows deep and crisp upon each other. 
Albuquerque, the second town in rank to Santa Fé, does 
present an imposing appearance. It is a straggling 
ection of adobe houses, scattered amongst innumerable 
cequias or irrigating ditches, in the perfectly flat lowlands 
B2 : : 
