The weekly Arizona miner., 1869-01-23
ghe >@ Siner,

then sharp edges cut our mules hoofs, and rendered footing exceedingly insecure. The soil formed by the decomposition of this nal pdis rock forms, when thorougly soaked in the wet season, a remarkably tenacious nry clay, which alone, even if there were no dif- hcult canyons, would at times make a road quite impossible.
 The mules struggled on over this rough ta- ble-land, and about tue middle of the after noon brought us to a singular depression, where we found water and camped
 granite cone rose out of the mal pais, and all around its base the strata have been wore away, leaving a round basin in the mid de of which is the cone of ,JO0 or 1, 800 feet height. Here is permanent water in tanks. and good camp ground; grass, in great quantities and of excellent kinds, abounds all ever the neighboring hills and rnesas. and wood enough for all camp purposes may be collected from the srrubhy cedars Mir. Gar dener climbed the cone on the following day. while explored the canyons and tables for a road line.
 From this camp we made a number Of pe- destrian excursions getting at last complete knowledge of the surrounding topography. The difficulties which lie in the way of road are all Of them of q nature that can be over come, but only with avery great expenditure. Compared with the very small gain in distance over the Date Creek road, 1t is much more than compensated by the accidental charac- ter of the ground.
 In moving our camp we descended into canyon which winds through labyrinth of confused piles of granite, the trail doubling and twining to avoid impossible crags, and finally emerging oH the edge of mesa, from which steep decliyity of about a thousand fact 1s tn ha the valley of Kirkland creek
 Thompson's valley is circular expansion of tho main Kirkland valley, and is of topo- graphical interest, as it's present water sys- tenn is divided by low, fat spar, half draining down one side of a high granite ridge and half down the other, uniting about four miles below, and flowing as one stream into the Santa Maria
 We followed the dry canyon of the north ern branch, keeping the narrow, sandy bed it wound back between the interlocking spurs which jgtted froin high granitic ridges on either side. Tall, monumental plants of the Ceri1 Gigaatic,ls stood erect among the de- bris and rock ruins; their shafts of futed green, Ieafess, and trimmed with thorns, heighten the savage aspect of the deiile.
 The pass opens after four miles of winding, into an open valley lying along the Santa
 
 of sandy soil is bordered on the west by granite mountains, through which the river in it's westward course has cut deep gate way. Upon the east is high boundary wall, formed of the escarped edge of the mesa. Here we csTnped for about ten days.
 After exploring in all directions as far ss we could on foot, Mir. Gardner, Mir Brinly and myself with three soldiers made little trip northwestward, climbing two high steps of the mesa system, and reaching after two hard days tramp, a eliminating point of the Aztec range. This we climbed and spent two days on its summit
 Our first day was half in clouds half in sun shine. Bitter snoS-sto-ms, which almost hourly swept over, accompanied by thunder, completely shut out all view. These alter nate periods of cloud shadows and sudden bursts of dazzling sunlight were of wonder full picturesqueness, but they rendered our work very unsatisfactory. The second day, however was of that peculiar ciearness which so often succeeds storm in mountain coun- tries. The immediately surrounding region, from the Mohave road, at Fort Rock springs down to Date creek, excluding the remark able basin of the Santa Maria, was in plain sight and in position to be easily studied out. The great plateau is not broken of here in one high biuff as in the Val de China and Ysmpai valley, but descends in long slopes and broken steps, which are everywhere cut by remarkably broken, abrupt canyons. The Santa Maria basin was itself e1cavated by aquaceieus action from one of these steps, and then ip s subsequent period of much greater erosire action was deeply gashed down by narrow, .conyerging canyons, with tabular ridges, mere tongues of land, left between them, SO that the former surface of the basin <a . .t.. stream beds, and only remains in the form of mesa peninsuas. tmong these here and there rise bold granite peaks, of generally angular outline and rugged surface, suggest. ing the architecture of mighty pyramids from the solid strata which have long over whelmed and hidden them. A more difficult region to travel over cannot be imagined, nor one which presents less inducement for set dement's.
 The mesa plains sTe indeed weii clothed with grass but they are hard to reach ana far from any tillsble land; besides, the dry climate and scarcity of water must alway' keep them iE their present desolate con9i ton.
 The great streams have long ago shrunker away. The torrents which excayated these remarkable canyons are generally now mer' river of sand, only flowing during the rapit melting of snows on the neighboring hills, o rarely in summer, when dense stOrm-clouC bursts over the gulf walls and pours down it deluge.
 There is evidence that even now these oc casionsl floods sometimes occur, With thei exception the streams are mere brooklets, sat urated with bitter alkaline salts, and for th' greater part of their course trickling and fil tering along the bed rock under covering O hot sand