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Show Record may have had a little trouble with them in what we call Clay Hill Valley, which is at a place where the river comes out of the canyon and there is a wide channel where the water spreads. There is no sand to speak of in the canyon because the river is so swift it keeps it pretty well washed out there. We prospected as we went down the river and would go to shore whenever we wished to examine any place, sometimes having to select a place to land and encountering a little trouble in landing. But we managed to get along. On that trip we went clear to the mouth of the San Juan River, taking with us the four 3470 boats I have mentioned, and in fact having five boats when we reached the mouth of the river because we came across a boat on our way down and used it for quite a while. There were five men in our boat party and our other two companions took our pack train down. We did not line the boat so frequently after we got below Fossil Canyon, which is the canyon that extended practically down to Piute Farms, stopping just a few miles above Piute Farms. 3471 At that time we did not know about Piute Farms. That place is on a little tributary of the San Juan called Nuggett Creek. The San Juan River runs through that section in sand and of course the channel changes. Piute Farms occupied in little space probably as large as this building, where the Navajo Indians planted their corn, pumpkins and watermelons and such things. These crops were raised by subirrigation and were not otherwise irrigated. Piute Farms was half a mile from the river, in a little valley that runs down Nuggett Creek. There is a little valley or basin that the San Juan runs through near the mouth of Nuggett Creek. When 3472 I went through there in 1894 the channel spread out and was side at that point and contained a great quantity of sand. It extends, with a few places where the canyon walls come pretty close, through to Talman and Atwood's camp below Nokai Canyon. We didn't have very much trouble getting through there. We may have had some trouble with the sand, but I don't recall it. Of course the channel |