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Show 86 sas itself are many little farms, and the climate is quite mild, as is evidenced by the number of cacti and other southoru plants which abound over the surface of the valley. Grass is very scant, and as a grazing region it is insignificant. The scenery of this portion of atlas- sheet 616 is unsurpassed. The wide valley of the Arkansas, with the Saguache range rising abruptly from its western terraces to over 14,000 feet altitude, massive and snow - crowned; the Sangre de Cristo range, as a spur shooting off from the Saguache range at Hunt's Peak, ( a lofty, sharp point south of the South Arkansas River,) trending around to the southeast and closing the valley; the Arkansas plateau to the east, with its almost uniform surface, and to the north the rounded humps of Buffalo Peak, offer to the view the greatest variety of landscape aud the gentlest as well as the most imposing of natural features. Some 6 miles above the mouth of the South Arkansas this stream is joined by Puncba Creek, which is notable an offering the only practicable pass into t he San Luis Valley from the east, between its head and the sand- hills, 60 miles d is taut. The approaches to the pass from the Arkansas Valley are narrow and quite tortuous, the road crossing and recrossing the stream at frequent intervals, but the grades as established are quite uniform and a very good wagon- road exists. The ascent averages 250 feet to the mile; hence it is too Bteep for railroad purposes. Over the head of Puncba Creek, between Hunt's Peak and Mount Antoro, the last high peaks of the Saguache range, it is practicable to build a road to the west for wagons, and, now that the valley of the Gunnison is being rapidly filled with settlers, it will be an obvious advantage to build one at this point. The ascending gradient is about the same as in the Puucha Pass from the South Arkansas, but on the west side there is a steep pitch from the summit, which, however, may be avoided by carrying the road around the hillsides, lengthening the road, and thereby diminishing the gradient. Upon the western Hide in a few miles from the summit the country opens out into the Tuinichi Valley with very gentle slopes. It may also be practicable to build a road over some of the headwaters of the South Arkansas. The range runs no lower down, but it is much wider in that vicinity, aud there would be consequently a larger stretch of mountain-road even if practicable gradients can be secured, which is not yet ascertained. Capt. J. W. Gunnison, in vol.- of the Pacific Railroad Surveys, remarked upon the apparent existence of passes at the heads of the Tumichi and Carnero Creeks, which led me more closely to examine this vicinity than perhaps 1 should otherwise have done. The summit of the Puncha Pass, 8,945 feet, being attained, one finds himself at once in the San Luis Valley proper, the Homan's Park of Gunnison. It is very narrow iu this vicinity,. being inclosed by the northern extremity of the Sangre de Cristo range and the broken volcanic overflow which covers the region about the headwaters of Kerber Creek. Gradually widening out toward the south, it attains at its maximum a width of some forty- five miles at Del Norte and ends about the southern border of Colorado, where overflows of volcanic matter break the general level. On the eastern side it is bounded by the Sangre de Cristo range, a very decided and well-marked sierra gradually rising toward the south from 9,000 feet at the Puncha Pass to 14,300 feet at the Sierra Blanca. Many of its sharp peaks attain 13,000 feet, and several, notably the ragged mass called the Three Tetons, exceed 14,000. The continuity of the range is unbroken and, though narrow, ( barely twelve miles from the San Luis Valley to the Wet Mountain Valley on the eastern side,) is, on account of the steepness of its slopes and the ragged natnre of its crest, impassable, save at the depressions called the Hayden, Music, Sand- Hill, and Mosca Passes. Of these the Mosca Pass is probably the only one which will be used in ordinary travel and traffic. The Hayden and Music are too steep, and on the eastern side the approaches to the Saud- Hill Pass are bad and on the west it is choked with sand. On the San Luis Valley side the Sangre de Cristo range is very abrupt, shooting up at once from the plain; from the east, however, its summit is very much more easily attained. Long slopes extend from near timber- line far into the Wet Mountain Valley, which is itself considerably higher than the San Luis. Wet Mountain Valley indeed resembles more a slightly- hollowed-out glacial bench upon the flanks of the Sangre de Cristo, than a true valley of depression between the Sangre de Cristo and Wet Mountain ranges. At the Sierra Blanca, the most massive and imposing group in Colorado Territory as far as I have observed, which rises nearly 7,000 feet above its base, the Saugre de Cristo range ends; more properly or orographically speaking, it ends at the Mosca Pass; and the Sierra Blanca should be perhaps named as a separate division of the Rocky Mountain system, beginning at the Sangre de Cristo Pass and ending at the Mosca. From the Sierra Blanca the bounding ridge of the San Luis Valley changes its direction to the eastward, and, after encircling the heads of the Sangre de Cristo Creek, continues its course to the west of south. South of the Sangre de Cristo Pass the range changes its character from the sharp sierra of the Sangre de Cristo proper, and is now a mountain- range, with more massive and rounded peaks and longer foot- hills and 8lopes. Its high and impassable character is preserved, however, and no passes worthy of the name exist south of the Abeyta until the Taos Pass in New Mexico is reached. Thene passes fall within the a e a surveyed by other parties of the expedition, and ref- |