Page:Memoir of a tour to northern Mexico.djvu/14

[ 26 ] told me) crowded around a little fire which he had kindled, but the cold was so intense that most of them died the same night; and others, in a state of starvation, commenced eating the ears of the dead ones.

The Cimarron at our night camp is a fine running creek, with good grass, but without wood. The elevation of our night camp is 3,830 feet. To-morrow we shall leave the Cimarron entirely, for better regions. In looking back from here towards the Arkansas, it is hardly necessary to remark, that this whole country, from the crossing of the Arkansas to the crossing of the Cimarron, will never be settled, from the scantness of grass, the scarcity of water, and the entire want of wood. But westward from here we shall come to regions more favored by nature, and more accessible to human industry.

June 16.–Started in the morning, passing by the upper springs of Cimarron, (12 miles,) to Cold spring, (17 miles.) The road becomes more gravelly. To our right we perceived distant, table-formed hills, with timber–a refreshing sight to a traveller who comes from the Cimarron.

About five miles from the crossin, light bluffs rise in the prairie, consisting of a yellow and reddish sandstone below, and a spotted sandstone, combined with lime and argyle, above. Five miles further, to the right of our road, rises a small mountain, formed by masses of rocks heaped up in irregular shapes to the height of nearly 100 feet. Ascending over those blocks to the top, I found them all to consist either of pure quartz or a very compact silicious sandstone of different colors, from white to deep red, (colored by oxyde of iron.) For a moment, I was at a loss to explain the presence and origin of this mountain. There was common sandstone all around it in the prairie, even at the foot of the mountain, but I could discover no connexion at all between this sandstone and the isolated mountain, and nowhere else could I perceive igneous rocks. This mountain could not therefore be in sit; it was an immense mass of boulders, transported here from more distant places by water, ice, or whatever theory one may accept for the explanation of those heavy masses of rocks, found very distant from the place of their origin, and known under the name of boulders. My opinion was confirmed by some polished surfaces that I found on the southwest side of the blocks, even of those lying on the top of the mountain. Some miles further I met with many isolated blocks of the same character; also with erratic rocks of serpentine and amygdaloidal basalt.

Cold Spring, where we halted, afforded us the best water we have tasted since we left the Arkansas; it breaks out of the sandstone that prevails here, and has a refreshing coolness. In the evening we marched six miles on our road, and encamped in the prairie. Towards evening we enjoyed the most beautiful scenery, which but a landscape of so mixed a character, where prairie and mountains meet, can produce. In the distant mountains before us, and to our left, a thunder-storm was gathering; and the setting sun illuminated the fast sailing clouds with so many tinted colors, changing their hues every minute, that it would be impossible even for the pencil of a Salvador Rosa to do justice to the grandeur of the scenery.

June 17.–We started this morning in a thick fog, with drizzling rain, but at last the sun overcame the clouds. The road is good, gradually ascending, and leads through the plain, while mountains, timbered with cedar, are on our right, a distance of 10 miles, and the rabbit-ear mounds about 40 miles before us. At noon we halted at Cedar creek, (eight miles.) Some cedars and cotton-trees grow here; sandstone prevails; the water is