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Show RECONNAISSANCE IN THE UTE COUNTRY. 11 Park, the seat of the San Juan mines, now much talked of, a division of the party was made. Recorder Campbell and Geologist F. Hawn, with two rod- men, were left in the park to make a topographical and geological survey of the mining district, while the rest of the party proceeded down the Animas River to a junction with the supposed trail of Colonel Macomb, surveying engineer, made in 1859. Description of the country from Fort Garland to the bottom of Animas Park.- As I have said, Fort Garland is on the eastern margin of the San Luis Park. Park is a very euphemistic name for a dreary desert. San Luis Parle.- This park is an immense, nearly level, sandy plain of irregular outline, with its long axis trending from the northern end a little east of south. Its greatest length is about sixty miles, and greatest width about fifty. It is bounded on the north and east by the Sangre de Cristo Range, west by the eastern foot- hills of the main range, and southward it gradually changes into the high mesa country of the Rio Grande Valley. From all these mountains numerous small streams flow out into the desert and quickly sink in the sand. Above the line from Fort Garland to La Loma, in the interior of the park, is a string of small ponds and marshes, which have been approximately located by our lines, and which may be the re- appearance of streams which have sunk above, and in the same way I should account for the appearance of a small, cool, pure spring, rising in the midst of the desert, about eighteen miles west of Fort Garland. This spring discharges a considerable volume of water, which flows down the sides of a small grassy mound and is absorbed again into the sand. Along the eastern side of the park immense sand- hills are frequently seen piled high against the mountains, and lesser ones rise from the plains, southerly, from the spring mentioned. From Fort Garland westward to the river is mostly through heavy sand, thickly covered with sage- brush and small each, with a scant growth of bunch- grass. Small herds of cattle and sheep, mostly native bred and in poor condition, pick a living from the sparse grass, getting water from the borders of the marshes or at the streams near the hills. Rio Grande.- After reaching the Rio Grande our route lay along the felt bank of the river. Here is a narrow belt of land, reaching back for an average distance of perhaps one- half mile from the very tortuous river, which is already watered by the numerous sloughs or bayous, or easily irrigated artificially. This land seems to be very fertile, aud bears fine- looking crops of cereals and grass, and there are, perhaps, a dozen ranches from the bend of the river to La Loma, a considerable growth of cotton- wood along the river. Beyond this belt the desolation of the park stretches to the mountains. Along here the Rio Grande is, at this season, a stream of perhaps 200 feet wide and 2 to 4 feet deep, swift and turbid. About sixty miles from Fort Garland the river debouches from the mountains into the plains of the park. Del Norte and La Loma.- Here, on the north side of the stream, stands the town of La Loma, and on the south side, a short distance higher up, is Del Norte. Within a year or two the § e towns have assumed importance as points of departure for the " San Juan mines," and are going through a small fever of real- estate and trading speculation. When I last saw them La Loma contained about twenty houses, and Del Norte perhaps fifty, mostly of adobe or logs, but there is now much wild talk of their rapid growth and great prosperity. These towns are at the mouth of that remarkable cul- de- sac of the mountains, at the bottom of which the Rio Grande has its source. The |