
          Copper [mines?] Octr [October] 10th 1851

Dear Doctor

I have a few minutes to write and as
I am just returned laden with the fruits of an excursion
through a region hitherto but little trave[added:r]sed I give you
a short account of it. We left this place on the 27th of Aug.
for a journey of two weeks to meet Gen. Conde in his camp
in some undefined spot of Northern Sonora but have spun
it out to the length of six weeks and to a distance of five [crossed out: hund]
hundred miles or more. If you have Emory's map (and if not
you had better get it) you will observe a large space enclosed on
one side by the Gila and on the other by the route of Col. Cooke.
This space we traversed to Santa Cruz not in a straight line but
zigzaging [zigzagging] about till we got from one end to the other and returned
by Cooke's route and that of the California emigrants
which diverges from that of Cooke at the San Pedro and
passes through Santa Cruz. Neither is it an open prairie as
Mr. Leroux believes but is crossed by three or four ranges
of mountains of different heights, [crossed out: and] with wide intervening
grassy vallies [valleys] variegated by "salinas" destitute of vegetation
or covered with tall coarse grass or divers [diverse] Chenopodiaceous 
shrubs & annuals or in other places with "chaparrals" of
mesquit [mesquite] (Algarobia) and mimosaceous bushes also spiny Nicotianeae
with Portutacaceae and Cactaceae also. The mountain
passes furnished me many interesting things. Among other curiosities
I have two or three unifoliolate species of Desmodium (annuals).
Several Cucurbitaceae also were met with one Passiflora (in
fruit) at Santa Cruz also a [Sambucus?] and a Heuchera with deep crimson
flowers and a gentian with bright white flowers beautifully fringed within
        