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Show 572 Ex. Doc. No. 41. October 6.-lVfarched at 9, after having gre~t trouble in get_ting some ox carts from the Mexicans; after marclung ab~ut t h_rec mde~, we ~net Kit Carson, direct on exp ress from Californta, w1th a m a~l of public letters fo_r :Washin~t ? n; he informs ~s th ~ t Co_lonel Fremont is probably ctvd ancl mdttary goYernor ol _Ca llfornra, and that about forty days since, Comroouore Stockton, wtth the n aval fo.rce, .. anu Colonel Ftemont acting in concert, commenced to r evol utionize that country, and' place it under the American ~ag; tha~, in about ten days, their work was done, and Carson, hav1ng r ece1ved the rank of lieutenant, was despat ched across the country by the Gila with a n arty to carry the mail; the general told him that h e hud Just pass~d over the co unt~y which ~e were to t:averse, and h e wanted him to cro ba ck with hun as a gutde; he r eplied that he had pledged himself to g~ to Washington, and he . could not thin~ of n o t f u I fi II in g h is pro m 1 s e. T h e g en era I to] d h un h e w o u 1 d r e lt e v e him of all responsibility, and place the mail in the hands of a safe person, to carry it on; he finally consented, and turned his face to the west agai11, just as he was on the eve of entering the settlements, after his arduous trip, and wl1en he had set his hopes on seeing his family. It requires a brave man to give up his private feelings thus for the public goocl; but Carson is one such! honor to him for it! Carson left California with 15 mtn; among them, six Delaware Indians-faithful fellows. They had fifty animals, most of which they left on the road, or traded with the Apaches, giving two for one; they were not aware of the presence of the American troops in New Mexico; they counted upon feeling their way along, and in case the l\'lexi ca ns were hostile, they meant to start a new outfit, and run a cross th eir country. When they came to the Copper- mine Apaches, th ey first l earned that an American ge neral had possession of the territory of New Mexico. The Apnchcs were very anxious to ue friendly with the Americans, and r eceived them very co rdial I y, much to their surprise. T he column moved on ten miles, and encamped und er a beautiful grove of cotton-woods, and the general issued an order reducing the ·command to 100 men, taking C and K com panies with him, and l<~avi ng n, G, anrl I companies und<•r Major Sumner's command, in the New Mexican territory. The officers to rna rch with the expedition are General Kearny, Captains Turner Rnd Johnston, Major Swords, quartermaster, As ,istant Surgeon Griffin, Lieutenants Warner and Emory, topographical engineers, Captain Moore, Lieutenants !Iammond and Davidson, 1s t drt~goons. Each company has three wagons, with eight mules in each, and the whole of the other companies put under requisition to supply C and K co mpanies with the best outfits. It went hard with some of the company command ers to part with their fine teams, the accumulation of mRny years, in their companies; but the public service being paramount, they submitted cheerfu11y. The Apa ches came to us to ·day, and gaye us four young men as guides. Octob er 7.-Took leave, and marcheu at 9; ancl passed an uninhabited country with fine bottoms of grass and groves of cotton- • Ex. Doc. No. 41 . 573 woo (l · t h.c hi 1l s a n d o u t- co u n try a s d e so 1 a 1 e-J o o k i n g a s b e f o r e ; the most ~f the grass in the bottoms is of a harsh character; but the gram a abounds on tl1e hills.. W c passed sev(•ral p l_a ces where the volcanic action was perceptible; ncar camp, the hills are capped w i t h a rim of b J a c k b a sa I t i c r o d' , so m e o f fi v e f t' e t t h i c k ; a bout two miles from this eveni ng's camp, passed th e ruins of an old vil· lage, probably Valv<'rde; there were no signs of ho us el', ex cept the piles of dirt ancl pieces of pottery scatte red auout. Octobe1· 8.-Marcl1ed at 8; distance, 18A miles; the bottom of the / Del Norte grows nanower, and we had much rough road and sand ; t h e t h o r n y m e z quite and o t h <' r b u 3 h e s m n lCI n g 1 t n c cess a r y to l1 ave a pioneer party with ax es to clear the road; we. halted at a dense thicket of willows, in which we saw a fl ock of wild turkeys; passed t he commencement of the jornacla of 100 miles without water on the Chihuahua ro ad; on the other side of the Del Norte, it is separated from us by a high volcanic mountain. The mountains along h ere seem to get more l ofty; occasional seams of dark basalt or trap nre seen, but most of th e p ea l~s are coml?osecl of lighter colored lava or trap, thrust up as granite usually Is, and eh ange(l to a reddish color by exposure of its surface. The back-bone of North America appears to have split open along here, and all the igneous rocks have been thrust up with a general parallelism, without making a continuous range along this seam. The water~ of the Del Norte run (while the waters of the Arkansas, the Gda, and other streams flow east and west) directly from it. An experienced trave 1l e r (n t h e s e reg i on s t e II s m e t h a t a fin e r o a d co u 1 d b e gotten f r o m some place about here to the fronti er settlements of T exas, on its Red river. If so, the future city of New Mexico must be about the south end of the Jornaclfl. mountain. We are now near 200 miles down the Del Norte from Santa Fe, but the stream is sti1l unfit for any purposes of navigation. Carson tells us that, at the rate we are travelling, we will not get to Angelos in four months. October 9. -Marched at 8, after repairing the hound of one of C company's wagons, which broke at dark last nigh t; our road all day was very rough, and we made but little progress with the wagons; in one place, the guicles were two hours hunting a route 7round a hill which lay in our way, capped with basalt; the basalt • . is cf a dark color, containing, ~2{;;~.?'-?{...w?@w~ probably, a 1arge.portio.n of iron. "'------~-.. _____ It was seamed In vanous ways with a light colored substance, which divided the mass into irregular spheroids. Some of the basalt was cellular, some solid; in ali, about eight feet thick. In another place, the same seam fell into a hollow, and was about fifteen feet thick, with an irregular columna! structure; near this was a mass of volcanic cinder. This basalt, or trap, capping the hills, is one of th~ reastJns why travelling is so difficult in this country; as this, coupled with the loose gravel and sand in which the feet of the animals sink, makes a wagon drag heavily; and already we begin to hear of resorting to packs. We passed to· day a remarkable mass of conglomerate, which had been ' |