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Show 303 tiary sandstone rise on the* margin of the parks, low terrace- levels extending along the borders of the valley; beyond are seen the metamor-phic ridges, and over these to the northwest the cloud- capped southern peaks of the Verinejo Mountains. It only lacks the presence of civilized homes, which no other region more cordially invites and which could in no degree detract from the beauty of its parks or the grandeur of the mountains, to render this one of the most attractive resorts in the country. The Vermejo, which has here gathered to a fine mountain- brook, soon plunges into the hills, which for six or seven miles closely hem the valley in. The topographical features of nearly all these little valleys along the margin of the parks, where they enter upon that part of their course lying across the Tertiary plateau, are peculiar and quite persistent in their manifestation. The uplands terminate in steep bluff declivities along the stream, 100 to 300 feet or more in height; and wherever they afford vistas of any considerable extent, the rapid descent of the valleys is very appreciable in the lines of successively lower ridges, which close in upon the lower course of the stream. This is markedly exhibited on the Vermejo, as also in the Francisco Valley on the north side of the Baton Hills; and what the view in that direction, looking down the valleys, lacks in mountainous grandeur, is often amply made up in picturesqueness. The steep, wooded heights frequently present a coping of light- red sandstone; sometimes their abrupt declivities are broken by an outlying mass resembling a dismantled fortress or watch- tower guarding the approaches of some little intervale- expansion hidden in the seclusion of the narrow valley, or rounded summits, clothed with open forest- growth and herbage, indicate the presence of a shaly horizon of the formation. The little stream is clear and cold, its pools furnishing abundant contributions of delicious trout, whose individual variableness is almost as striking as that of some aquarial species; but on our return, three days later, no amount of dexterity and patience, coaxing and piscatorial wickedness, could prevail on the finny gormands to take the fly, so Batiated were they of a day's feasting provided by the sudden invasion of locusts that swept down from the nonh. Where the stream flows through an intervale- bordered expausiou, its banks reveal a depth of rich soil, which rests upon the coarse materials of the drift. Frequently, the alluvia] or lacustral deposits extend up on the valley- sides on approaching a contraction in the valley, where the stream forces its way through some gorge, which apparently indicates' their accumulation when a barrier extended across the foot of the valley, backing its waters into a little lake- basin. Some seven miles below the point where we regained the Vermejo, the valley widens out into quite an extensive park, in which a number of American families have established comfortable homes, surrounded by pleasant fields, whose fertility is evidenced by stacks of grain and well-filled vegetable- cellars. The park is formed by the union with the main valley of a considerable lateral valley, which rises in the divide south of the headwaters of the Canadian. A low terrace- bench occupies the angle between the two valleys, which is made up of darkish shales, covered by accumulations of drift. The surrounding flat- topped hills are composed of the Tertiary sandstones, which, in the canon above, dip gently northwest. Here, as also below, in the dark shales in the foot of the hills, a thin layer of lignite occurs. At the lower end of the park, the hills approach the stream, forming a sort of gateway, in the foot of which gray shaly sandstone outcrops, in which were observed the im- |