122 
CAEEIZO-SACKETT’S WELLS. 
at the foot of such lofty, rough crested hills, rain, indeed, must be scarce, yet the evidences 
of running water are displayed in the base of the triangular valleys leading out from the 
range, where large stones are washed out of the clay and sand and heaped together, the result 
of existing causes. 
The temperature at Carrizo on the 3d June at noon was 100° Fahrenheit, and rose to 102° 
later in the day. The effect of this heat was visible on the stream, which ceased flowing about 
11 o’clock, ; n did not recommence until near 4 p. m., being absorbed or evaporated during 
the interval ; two miles below it completely disappears in the sand. Five miles below camp 
is the high terrace mesa, on gaining which may he seen the desert, as far eastward as the eye 
can reach. To gain this the river bed was travelled down and its direction followed, for a few 
miles, where the valley widened into a flat water bottom, the reservoir of the Carrizo ; in front, 
was the denuded wall of the sands and clays, forming the terrace alluded to, and on the west 
lay the volcanic rocks, which we were leaving behind, and which stretch out eastward in 
isolated mountains, forming an unconnected chain, and by contrast to the even surface of the 
desert resembling, what no doubt they were at one time, headlands and promontories of a bold 
shore jutting out seaward. 
From the edge of the terrace to Sackett’s wells is about twelve miles. The soil along the 
trail is made up of rounded quartz pebbles, grains of felspar, and larger pieces of the minerals 
mixed ; a yellowish brown fine sand, with some plates of mica, and occasionally small masses 
of purplish felspar porphyry, all rounded and well polished. Mr. Wm. P. Blake, in Lieut. 
Williamson’s Report, 1853, (H. Doc. 129,) no doubt gives the true explanation of the polishing 
of these pebbles by the attrition of the loose sands, drifted by the winds. 
The unconnected chain of igneous rocks, referred to above, run out about forty-five miles 
into the desert. One of these lies north of the trail, and one to the south, separating it from 
the Gulf of California. One of the most remarkable of these is “Signal mountain,” which 
serves as a landmark to travellers from Fort Yuma to San Diego. These hills, judging from 
their outline, are granitic and porphyritic, with trachyte. Although at a distance they appear like 
a connected range, yet, when examined carefully, it may be seen that many of them drop 
down at their extremities, and can be travelled round. Indeed, there cannot be truly said to 
be any distinct range running eastward from the Sierra Nevada, the general character of the 
country being a series of extended plains, separated from each other by isolated ridges or lone 
hills, whose general direction is north 40° west, and south 40° east. 
The water supply at Sackett’s wells consists of three wells sunk in an arroyo bed, which 
itself lies four feet below the general level; the wells are about six feet deep, and the water 
oozes in about five feet down, flowing through a thin stratum of sand which overlies the clay bed 
constituting the bottom of the wells. Should this last be cut through, the water sinks, and it 
would be necessary to go several feet down to meet another clay layer. A fourth well was dug 
at this time by a Mexican party travelling along. The water is good, not saline, and agreeable 
to the taste ; it oozes out of the sand layer slowly but steadily, requiring six minutes to fill a 
two-gallon pail. In one of the wells a barrel has been sunk, which should be done with all, and 
an adobe building should be raised around them. The clay at the bottom of the wells is a 
yellow, tenacious argil, and advantage might be made of it for brick manufacture, or using it 
merely puddled as a material for the sides of the wells. 
From Sackett’s wells to Alamo Mocho is thirty-five miles, passing by Lagoons, the trail lying 
along a heavy sand road. The sand is fine, white, rounded quartz, like beach sand ; the clay 
