76 Expedition to the 



vine. At length one returned, having found, at the dis- 

 tance of a mile and a half below, a pass where, it was 

 thought, our horses could be led up the cliff. 



On the preceding day, we had commenced our accustom- 

 ed march in a valley bounded by perpendicular cliffs of red 

 sandstone, having an elevation of at least two hundred feet 

 from the surface of the valley. As we ascended gradually 

 along the bed of the stream, we could perceive we were ar- 

 riving near the surface of this vast horizontal stratum 

 and, at night, we pitched our tent at the very point where 

 the red sandstone began to be overlaid, in the bed of 

 the creek, by a different variety. This second variety, the 

 gray sandstone, was in a horizontal stratum, evidently more 

 than two hundred feet in thickness. It is usually a more 

 compact and imperishable stone than the red, its fragments 

 remaining longer entire and retaining the angles and asperi- 

 ties of the surface, which in the other variety are soon sof- 

 tened down by the rapid progress of disintegration. It is 

 easy to perceive that the sandstone formation, including the 

 two varieties above mentioned, must be, at this point, of im- 

 mense thickness; fifteen hundred feet is probably a very 

 moderate estimate for the aggregate elevation of some ex- 

 tensive portions of the gray sandstone, abave that part of the 

 valley at which the red first appears. From this point 

 downwards the extent of the latter variety may be very great; 

 but no estimate can be formed which would be in any mea- 

 sure entitled to confidence. 



After we had dined, we retraced our two last courses, and 

 succeeded in ascending the cliff, at the place which one of 

 the hunters had pointed out, taking, without the least regret, 

 our final leave of the " Valley of the souls in Purgatory."* 



* This tributary of the Arkansa, designated on the old maps as the First 

 Fork, as we learned from Bijeau, is called, among the Spaniards of New 

 Mexico, " The river of the souls in purgatory." We emerged from the 

 gloomy solitude of its valley, with a feeling somewhat akin to that which 

 attends the escape from a place of punishment. 



