52 NEW TRACKS IN NORTH AMERICA. 
this perpendicular cliff not only extended across Railroad | 
Pass, but formed the base of the mountains in front of 
We looked back, and there it was also, in exactly the s 
relative position at the foot of the range we had left the 
before. Then the real nature of the illusion became manif 
for we had not climbed down any such obstacle ; had it hb 
areality, we could not have overcome it without letting a 
the wagons and cattle by ropes; our dreaded barrier must 
therefore be a myth. And so it was, for in half an hour he 
cliffs had disappeared, and behold! a sloping grass-cov’ 
plain alone stretched out before us. : 
Let us pause for a moment at Railroad Pass, so as bri efly 
to review the physical geography of the country over which 
we have so rapidly travelled, and to take a prospective glane 8 © 
at our future course. 3 
The most northerly pass westward out of the Rio Gra 
Basin, practicable for a railroad, we found to be Palmer 
Pass, through Cooke’s Range, the most southern spur of i 
Miembres Mountains. Some eight miles south of Palmer’s Pas 
Cooke’s Cafion was found to be practicable with a tunnel; | 
but both passes could be avoided by goimg only six miles 
further to the south, and passing around the end of the ran, 
in the Madre Plateau. 
The second range of mountains encountered was the B 
of them in the great plateau. I have spoken of passing 
of the Rio Grande Basin, across Cooke’s Range, and of er 
the continental divide to the Pacific slope over the B 
Mountains ; I have not, however, stated where the drainag 
the Setcienpiiatn district goes to. The plain between 
