18 
TIMBER—BUILDING STONE—WATER. 
face, or mesa, has an average altitude above the river-hottom of three to six hundred feet, and 
is connected with it by an irregular step of a loose, light soil, extending to a point opposite, 
and a short distance below Fort Fillmore, where, in place of the deep-washed, loamy slope, is 
found an outcrop of a black, igneous rock, with a foot-slope of its angular debris. To descend 
to the river-hottom will require a diagonal trace, hugging the mesa slope, until a distance is 
made sufficient to overcome the difference in altitude; the direction of this depending upon 
location of route to the eastward, whether leaving the valley at the pass near Dona Ana, or on 
the south at El Paso. 
The supply of timber along the route is very limited. Cotton-wood, the only growth of size 
sufficient to answer the purposes of sills, is found in hut four localities; on the Gila, at Tuczon, 
on the Mimhres, and Rio Bravo. Water being so essential to the very existence of this tree, it 
only grows on the hanks of streams, and disappears with the sinking of the waters, as is the 
case at Tuczon and Rio Mimbres. At Tuczon I was informed that a variety of the pine is found 
in the canadas of Sierra de Santa Catarina to the east and northeast of the town. In the mount¬ 
ains, about fifteen or twenty miles north of the crossing of the Mimhres, the pine also exists. 
But the plains are entirely destitute of trees of any description, and the mountains have a general 
appearance of sterility and ruggedness, yielding in the concealed nooks and valleys a meagre 
growth of cedar and dwarfish evergreen oak. 
The rocks are generally of a metamorphic character, hut there is found at many points along 
the line stone answering well the purposes of construction. Granite appears in the Cienega de 
los Pimas, in the ridge to the east of the San Pedro, outcropping in the Puerto del Dado, and 
overlying masses of secondary limestone in the ridge east of the Valle de Sauz. Sandstone and 
limestone are both found in the Puerto del Dado. Near the Rio Bravo both limestone and 
gypsum are found, the veins or seams of the anhydrous variety of the latter being exposed in 
the clayey walls of the ravine leading down to the river. 
There is a great scarcity of water along the line, there being but nine localities where the 
supply could be said to be permanent. These are: 1st, at Tuczon—a clear running stream, 
but disappearing a few hundred yards below the town; 2d, in the Cienega de los Pimas—fine 
springs, but the water soon sinks into the sand, as is the case at camp No. 16 ; 3d, the Rio San 
Pedro, a turbid stream, winding its way to the Gila; 4th, a spring near camp No. 22, in the 
Puerto del Dado—the water cold and very palatable, but the supply very limited, our animals 
having entirely exhausted the basin before they had a sufficiency; 5th, in the bottom of the 
Valle de Sauz—a stream of clear but slightly brackish water, spreading out into a marsh' and 
extending towards the Gila in a succession of pools ; 6th, a hole near camp No. 25, where, al¬ 
though the water rose in the bottom, still every other feature would indicate that a blind drain 
of mere surface-water had been tapped ; 7th, the Ojo de Vaca—a spring of slightly sulphureous 
water, rising in the open plain and forming a marsh, beyond the limits of which there is no 
appearance or indication of the existence of water; 8th, Rio Mimbres—a rippling mountain 
stream of clear cold water at the crossing, being the more beautiful from the contrast with the 
state of things a few miles below, where the water is absorbed by the parched plain, the trees 
disappear, and there is nothing left but the dry, gaping bed; 9th, Cook’s spring—is of similar 
character to the Ojo de Vaca, and bears more of a resemblance to a pond-hole than to a spring. 
In addition to the above constant waters, there are holes or depressions on the plains inter¬ 
vening, which are filled by the rains of the wet season, and thus often afford relief to the anx¬ 
ious and solicitous traveller. These holes are lined with a clay allowing but little absorption; 
but, being generally shallow and broad-surfaced, evaporization soon empties them of that neces¬ 
sary which one requires, but has to be deprived of in order fully to appreciate it. 
At Tuczon the rainy season commences in April, and continues for three or four months; so 
that the emigrant who passes this point during the summer months finds himself in this coun¬ 
try in the most favorable season with water abundant and grass green and nourishing, whereas 
we yrere there, and en route , about the end of the dry season, as our experience proved, meeting 
