MOUNTAIN SYSTEMS. 
5 
ains, Organ mountains, Sandia mountains, Santa Fe mountains, Sierra Blanca, Sierra Mojada, 
Sierra San Juan, Sierra de la Plata, Elk mountains, Park mountains, Medicine Bow mount¬ 
ains, and Black Hills. 
System Ho. 1 is thus hut partially gorged by the Rio Grande, whose passage of the Great 
Canon is wholly impracticable for any method of communication ; that of El Paso is practi¬ 
cable. It is completely cut through by the North Platte and Sweet Water, forming a prac¬ 
ticable route ; and is turned by the Upper Missouri. 
Low mountains or hills are known to exist between the Black Hills and the Wind River 
chain, about the headwaters of the Yellowstone and Missouri; but this region is too little 
known to be treated of with confidence, and may have a decided effect in modifying this classi¬ 
fication. 
System No. 2. If, from the Great Northern Bend of the Missouri, we travel west for 450 
miles, we come again upon what are called the Rocky mountains ; and still further west lies 
the Cceur d’Alene, or Bitter Root range, the two enclosing the Bitter Root or St. Mary’s 
valley; and both are considered as forming a part of this system. Following it to the south, 
it includes the Wind River chain, the Bear mountains, the Uinta mountains, and the 
Wahsatch, which last continue as far south as it has been explored, probably forming the 
divide between the Great Basin and the Colorado, till the junction of the latter with the 
Gila. 
System No. 3. From the junction of the Gila and Colorado, we find continuous mountains 
running to the northwest, and terminating at Point Conception, on the Pacific. On the 
south they are joined by the mountains forming the peninsula of California, the junction 
being at the San Gorgonio Pass, in latitude 33° 45'. 
On the north, two chains leave this range in latitude 35°. One, called the Coast range and 
Coast mountains, lies to the west of the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys, the waters of 
which break through them at the Bay of San Francisco. The other, called the Sierra Nevada, 
lies to the east of these valleys. A great depression, forming a plateau, is known to exist in 
the Sierra Nevada in latitude 40° 30', and another in latitude 42° 45', near Lake Abert. This 
chain may, perhaps, be considered as terminating at or in these plateaus, or to find its con¬ 
tinuation in the Cascade or Coast range, which extend into the British possessions, being 
broken through by the Columbia and partly by the Klamath rivers. 
The Blue mountains, to the south of the Columbia, represented as having a general north¬ 
east direction, may be considered, along with the mountains mentioned since leaving the 
Colorado, as forming system No. 3. 
The Humboldt River chain, running north and south, (where crossed,) and separating the 
waters of the Humboldt or Mary’s river from those of the Great Salt Lake Basin, is a marked 
feature; but as to its connexion, north and south, with other ranges, nothing is certain. 
There seem good reasons for believing that the east and west ranges, represented as sepa¬ 
rating the Columbia River basin from the Great Basin, as well as the range represented as 
extending west from the Vegas of Santa Clara, are only apparently such, the deception arising 
from the overlapping of the side spurs to chains, the general direction of which is north and 
south. 
The “triangular space” lying between the Rio Grande, Gila, and Colorado, is everywhere, 
so far as known, exceedingly mountainous; the ranges, such as the Mogollon and San Fran¬ 
cisco mountains, having a general northwest direction. Too broad an interval exists between 
the explorations of Lieutenant Whipple and those of Captain Gunnison, to enable us to speak 
with certainty of their relation to the systems already alluded to. 
In portions of the mountain region, the water-s find no outlet to the sea, but drain into 
lakes and ponds, or sinks, carrying with them all the impurities of the basins to which they 
belong, and are there uniformly brackish or very salt. Prominent examples of this are the 
Salinas Basin, of New Mexico, and the Great Salt Lake Basin in Utah. 
