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Show 48 RECONNAISSANCE IN THE UTE COUNTRY. from the eastern mountains the road crosses to the left bauk by a good trass- bridge. Sloping down directly froin the mountain's foot is a mesa of variable width to three- fourths erf a mile. This breaks down with a pretty steep slope of about twenty feet vertical descent. Another mesa breaks down with another bench to the present river bottom. These mesas mark remarkably well the old lake levels. They are nearly barren, with many large bowlders, and very little grass or other vegetation. Where Chalk Creek runs down, there are on either side ridges running down to the river, making a basin of considerable width, and also at Brown's Creek. From the sixth mile below Camp 27 the valley gradually widens, until it is fully three miles across. Fourteen miles below damp 27 the hills close in, and the river runs in a low canon. These hills are rocky and covered with small pinon. Just above Camp 28 the river flows through a cation having one wall of about 200 feet; often lower. Chalk Greek.- River here 100 feet or 150 feet wide, swift, with bed of large, smooth bowlders, and depth of three feet. Immense growth of • cactus, and but little else. Chalk Creek is twenty- five or thirty feet wide, a brisk volume of water, with a grist and saw mill, and thrifty-looking house. The creek comes out of main range by a gorge or eanon, and there seems to be a very low pass by it, but probably it is a difficult one, as it is not used. On Brown's Creek are several ranches, on which the farmers were cutting wheat September 24. The straw is small and looks very green. Our Camp 28 was on the river near forking of the road down the Arkansas and that leading over the Puncho Pass. September 25.- Mr. Bassel and Lieutenant DeLancy here left us with an escort, and a party consisting of Mr. Bassel, Mr. Austey, and Mr. L. Hawn, with instructions to run the line at least as far as Kerbu Creek, in Homan's Park, and, if practicable, to the Musca Pass line, then proceed to Fort Garland and discharge the party. From Camp 28 on, r line was run down the left bank of river along a mesa, sloping slowly to the river front of foot- hills on the spur running down northeast of Arkansas. The valley on the other side is closed by broken and timbered face of mesa between Arkansas and South Arkansas. The valley is here triangular, with sides about 5 or 6 miles long, and the openings of Puncho Creek and the river above and below in the angles. Bottom looks pretty fertile, where irrigated, but that portion crossed by us is a barren plain of sand and cacti. Considerable stock were running in the valley, but they require a large range. There are several ranches in the valley. On the south is seen, just west of Puncho Pass, the base of the San-gre de Cristo spur, marked by several high peaks, rugged and timber-less for 1,000 feet. Just above junction of the South Fork the wagon-road crosses to the left bank, and a mile below enters a canon, at the upper end of which was our Camp 29. The southwest wall of tbis canon is formed by the foot- hills of the Sangre de Cristo range, and the northeast wall by the foot- hills of the range between the Arkansas and South Platte. The summit of the Sangre de Cristo range was seen at times through a gulch, being about five or six miles distant. The summit of the spur between the Arkansas and South Platte was not recognized; perhaps, however, it was the line of hill- tops seen from the trail. This canon exposes, first, trap or basalt, then a stratum of compact gray limestone, afterward an immense stratum of dark- red, coarse sandstone, with here and there a thin layer of lime. The canon is close, but not a u box " canon. Hills seldom open out, and never to give any bottom. |