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Show TOLTECCAN. 243 torted or twisted, the lava rock presented precisely the same appear-ance as if one should lay down successive folds of tarred canvas till the pile was ten or twelve feet thick, and then roll the mass over and over and into long heaps. Some extensions of this twisted mass reached even to the edge of the springs, and I saw indications where it had overflowed into the pools ; but most of the way across the valley one could trace the division between the lava and the original rock base on to which it had flowed as easily as with a daub of mud thrown upon the floor of a house. By a rise of perhaps ten feet we entered upon this mala pqis, and soon came to where the lava was not in waves, but seemed to have cooled in a mass, presenting a granulated appearance, much like cool-ing sugar ; and a little farther we found it light and frothy looking, as if a hot, foaming current had cooled to stone, porous and spongy, like pumice- stone. A mile westward brought us out into the broader val-ley, and, looking backward, it seemecj to me that the lava flow had been choked in the narrow pass about the time the supply was ex-hausted. Five miles over the level land brought us to another de-scent, leading to another oval plain ; and, running in a ser-pentine course across it, I saw a shining line which I judged to be water the irregular course of some mountain stream. But it soon appeared too dazzlingly bright, and we found it only a narrow, dry gully, bottom and sides crusted with salt and alkali, painful to the eye. A little water runs there in winter just enough to bring down the alkali from the mountains. ' From the plain of the mala pais we descend a little into Red Val-ley, about Agua Azul. It is walled in by fearfully abrupt mountains of black and red stone in an irregular circle, and is about five miles by three, containing at least eight sections of land of the utmost fertility. Near the bordering mountains the soil is red, giving name to the valley and the central butte, but lower down it is dark. Running water was found only at the south- west corner of the valley, and there M. Provencher first began to cultivate the soil, when he established the ranche four years before. The yield from this soil of volcanic origin was astonishing; wheat produced thirty- six bushels per acre; corn thirty- eight fancgas ( a fnnega is 136 pounds), and oats grew to the height of a man's head, yielding bounteously. But only one crop was raised ; then the dry season, which lasted for three years in western New Mexico, set in ; the water failed, and it is a question whether the place can ever be utilized. Give but a stream of pure water, and this |