Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1899-07-29
THE GREAT BEND OF THE RIO GRANDE
An Almost Unknown Country Not Many Miles from Ell Paso Will
Be Explored By the United States Geological Survey--The
Least Known Portion of the United States.

Notwithstanding the arid character
of the country, there is plenty Of food
for all these animals. The cactus fruits
are nourishing, and so are the seeds OF
The prickly pear, while the mesquite
beans are extremely nutritious, and
other desert plants yield sustenance in
one form or another. The loftier noun
tains, too, bear pine forests on theiI
tops, which produce edible nuts. One
naturally thinks of the timber line
on a mountain as marking a zone,
reached in going upward, where trees
cease to grow; but in this strange re-
gion it is only on the mountain tops
that timber is found, the slopes being
devoid of tree growth.
When the Mexican boundary was sur
veyed the parties engaged in the work
could not get into the canon country
with their wagons and outfit, and were
obliged to make a detour around it. II
is a domain full of myth and legend
as might be expected from it's physio-
graphic peculiarities. In places the
canons have perpendicular walls OF
chalk and limestone, built with exquis-
lite regularity Of natural masonry,
which rather resembles the work of art
than Of nature. AS the Rio Grande goes
round Mount Emory-the loftiest eleva-
ton in that part of the world, with an
altitude of 5000 feet-it makes it's Deep
est cutting, a channel fully 1000 feet in
depth. Think Of the length of time,
doubtless running up into thousands OF
centuries, that must have been required
for the stream to eat it's way downward
through nearly a mile and a quarter of
solid rock! Seen from the canon's edge,
h river is a mere thread, and the roa1
of it's rapids and falls is scarcely audi
BILE.
1t is supposed that CaDeza de Naca,
VINO was the 1lrsu white mar to cross
n present territory Of the Uniteu
states from Atlantic to Pacific, Went
through the Great Bend country. He
mad With him three companions, one OF
"hAoAAA vas AlS5lO, anu llle pdly lldu llO
food supplies except what nature at
fordeu and the Indians gave them.
Starting from Florida in June, 1927, they
did not see a white person until April,
l536-nearly nine years-When they
reached Sinaloa, in Mexico, and there
came across an outpost of the Cortez
invasion.
The Great Bend country, save in some
of it's parts, is very little known to-day,
no thorough exploration of it having
even been made. 1t is a region of lost
mountains, as they might be termed, as
well as of lost rivers. Some hundreds of
miles to the northWard the chain Of The
Rockies loses it's continuity, and thence
in a southerly direction the mountains
are scattered in isolated ranges and
peaks, forming no homogeneous sys-
tenn. Some Of them are domes, like SUI
gar loaves, others ar bl~ock-shaped me-
sas, and others yet, when seer in groups
from a distance, look like the spires of
distant cities. The Pecos and the Rio
Grande are the only streams in all that
ally.
Here and there occur springs, though
rarely, and in their neighborhood cattle
ranches are found. In the "bolsons," be-
tween the ranges, hopeless deserts
though they are, water may be got by
digging deep for it. The bolsons are
basins filled with debris from the noun
tains, and water is usually held in their
bottoms, if the dry and porous strata
above be pierced through. 1t is one of
the oldest freaks Of that domain of
geological curiosities.-Boston Tran
script.