TE,CAS INDIAN PAPERS, 1846-1859
187
except at a few points which have been disposed of to individ- uals, are insufficient for farming purposes. From the Little Wichita we travelled north towards the waters of the Big Wichita River, and ascended that stream with our wagon train as high as we found good water sufficient for the escort and animals, when we were obliged to leave the greater portion of the command, while with a small mounted escort we pushed rapidly forward to the sources of the river. In the course of our march we visited the locality alluded to in our instructions from the Department of the Interior, at the points where the Big Wichita and the Brazos Rivers approach nearest to each other. We found upon the South Side of the Brazos opposite this point a desirable tract of land, but it is not vacant. There are spots in the valley of the main trunk of the Big Wichita where the soil is good but the adjacent country upon both sides is very elevated, sterile, and much broken up with deep ravines with precipitous rocky sides, and with the excep- tion of a stunted growth of cedar upon the hills and a narrow fringe of cotton wood along the banks of the river it is totalls destitute of woodland. This river has its origin in a locality of great elevation (the barometer ind"icating an altitude of two thousand two hundred feet above the sea) and flows for about a hundred miles through an extensive field of gypsum which imparts to the water an acrid and nauseating taste, throughout its entire course to its confluence with Red River, thereby rendering this section wholly unsuited to agricultural purposes, and indeed almost uninhab- itable. From the head waters of the Big Wichita our course was south for twenty miles, when we struck the principal or Salt Fork of the Brazos River Which we ascended to a point about twenty five miles from its source. We found the river composed of three principal branches all having their sources in a very broken and mountainous re- gion, and 'in their course passing through the gypsum formation before mentioned and the waters of all having the unpalatable properties peculiar to to the presence of that mineral. The soil near the headwaters of this stream (east of the mountains) is in many places of good quality, but the great
Powered by FlippingBook