Viewing page 87 of 93

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

show in a faulted cliff 1000 to 1500 feet above the first valley bottom. the bottom of Dog Canyon. Outlying ridges drop lower with other escarpments & canyons to the bottom of the big salt valley on the west. The main crest of the escarpments extends N.W. some 15 or 20 miles north of the Texas line where it runs lower before joining in the Sacramento escarpment farther north. There is said to be a low saddle or pass in between, but the ranges are in line & from the peaks here seem almost or quite continuous.
To the west of the big salt lakes & playa the rough little Cornudes mts. stand up in bunches of sharp, rough little craters & lava ridges typical of the desert. South of them ^[[insertion]] lie [[/insertion]] the low ridges of the Diablos & far in the west the Franklin Mts. near El Paso look blue & dim.
[[end page]]

[[start page]]
[[underline]]Aug 10[[/underline]]. Took a trip up to the camp - mine & over ridge to the south to head of McKitterick Canyon & back to explore for water & a camp place. Found no water above the mine camp & so returned & moved camp a mile up the canyon to rain tank in limestone gulch, just over the line in Texas & 100 feet higher than our other camp. Will make this our base camp. It is a mile & a half below the miners camp, at 6800 feet. in junipers & nut pines & a few ponderosa.
Aneroid at camp 6800, at miners camp 6900, at mine shaft about 7800, on top of ridge 8300, on one peak on crest of ridge 8400 & on another 8500.
From top of ridge we look down into McKitterick's canyon & across south of it to higher peaks including Guadalupe Peak which I can easily believe to be 9500 feet high. Far to the south we see a corner of the Davis Mts., & to the north, beyond the Sacramentos, the white mts. & Capitan in blue haze. To the east we look out over the Pecos Valley onto the Staked Plains & to the west across the desert to El Paso & Mexico.