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Show 133 Sulphuric acid traces. Phosphoric acid ". 0.061 Hygroscopic water 1.790 Chemically bound water and organic matter 1.390 Insoluble in hydrochloric acid 93.30 The Bio de Chama has three affluents between its month and Abiquiu: the Bear Creek from the south, and £ 1 Rito and Ojo Caliente Creek from the north. The first and second are of little value, their bodies of water being too small for irrigating purposes; but it is different with the third, which furnishes water sufficient to irrigate the bottom- lands through which it runs. Fourteen miles above its mouth is an old Mexican settlement, the town of Ojo Caliente, so called from the hot springs near by, with splendid fields of eorn and water- melons. About six miles below this town are the ruins of a Mexican village containing about twenty houses; the pasturage being poor in the vicinity, the inhabitants had gone to the mountains. From Abiquiu south as far as Jeraez, and west as far as Nacimiento, stretches an extended mountain region, the southern portions of which are called Jemez and the western Nacimiento Mountains. Here are the two Abiquiu Peaks and the Jemez Peak, about 11,000 feet in height. The numerous mountain- valleys are well grassed, and numerous he/ ds of cattle and sheep roam thereiu. Springs and small mountain-streams are numerous. These valleys are surrounded by splendid forests of pine. In winter the stock has to be driven into lower altitudes, the snow being very considerable. Night- frosts occur here even in midsummer, rendering farming impossible. The scenery or this plateau is exceedingly charming, and if any region of the West deserves to be called " park," it is this one; indeed, it was proposed by some of our party, and not inappropriately, to designate the region " Paradise Mountains." On a very small stream on the western slopes of the mountains in question is the settlement Nacimiento. To utilize more land than is at present available for agricultural purposes, an aqueduct is to be constructed from a neighboring tributary of the Guadeloupe River. If this is done, thousands of acres in the vicinity can be farmed. From Nacimiento southerly to the foot of Mount Taylor, and westerly to Cation Bonito, the country- about live thousand square miles- has an extremely desolate and barren aspect, consisting, as it does, in either a sandy plain with a meager supply of grass and arroyos, or elevated mesas, covered with juniper and partially with pinon; the average elevation is about 5,900 feet. This region is traversed by the Rio Turreones, Rio Puerco, belonging to the Atlantic side of the divide, and the Canon de Chaco, belonging to the Pacific side; these streams, however, rarely contain running water. There are also a number of springs, among which maybe mentioned Oio del Alto, Ojo de la Cueva, Ojo San Jose, Ojo de Tao, Ojo del Espiritn Santo, and Willow Springs. Sheep are occasionally driven over this locality to pick the little grass to be found, but at times the herds wander too far from the springs, or water- holes, and die of thirst. On one occasion we came across some forty skeletons of sheep along a single dry arroyo. Another fact observed here is worthy of meution on account of its bearing on the dryness of these regions, viz, the existence of deserted ant- hills here and there upon the isolated sandstone mesas of small extent. Here the ants construct their hills from much larger pebbles than do those in the Eastern States, the sweeping winds of this section easily blowing the small particles away and rendering firm structures necessary. Neither living nor dead ants were to be found, but legs and wings of inects that had served the ant for rood were seen. Had the ants died in these hills, surely some of their homey tissues would have been left, as of the beetles. There is no doubt in my own mind that the ants had gone to the deeper valleys and canons where some grass and consequently insects existed; the grass having died out on these mesas, bugs and beetles had taken their departure. This would seem to indicate increasing dryness of the climate of New Mexico, the inhabitants of which are convinced that it become* drier and drier every vear. " El tiempo sepone mas seoo coda ano" ( the weather grows-drier every year,) sighs the Mexican. They teft of springs and creeks that existed one hundred and some fifty years ago; indeed, even of some that have disappeared within the last fifteen years. Amoug these, a Mexican of Abiquiu mentioned the Rito Coyote, Rito Vallecito, aud Rito Colorado de Abiquiu, all once existing in the mountains near Abiquiu. The provinces of Tignex and Quivira, ( the former on the Rio Puerco, the latter east of the Manzana Mountains,) described by the early Spanish visitors as fertile countries, are now barren. Rnins of former Indian towns are found twelve to eighteen miles away from any water, one discovered by Lieutenant Whipple being fifteen miles north of the Rio Mancos. There must certainly have been water in this section formerly. It seems to me uot impossible that New Mexico, which was to a £ reat part up to the Cretaceous aud even partially up to the Tertiary, the bottom ot the ocean, and was, toward the eud of the Tertiary period, lifted up to a considerable altitude/ ( the bottom of this Tertiary sea " Most probably in connection with the enormous and unparalleled outbursts of trachytic and basaltic material, and the accompanying volcanic convulsions. |
