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water worn pebbles. This gravel has sometimes a thickness of one hundred feet or more, and a large portion of the distance extends back from the river fifteen or twenty miles to the mountains.

MINERALS-GOLD.

Near Muerto springs, eastward, near the head waters of the Limpia, are many quartz and quartoze veins. In one of these Mr. Delany, an employe at the Muerto stage station, says he got specimens of gold, of which he gave us some fine ones in quartz. He reports the gold to be abundant, but he refused to show us the locality unless we would give him $1000, and also buy the land and give him one-half interest in the property, to which we did not agree.

However, the indications in that region are such that probably both gold and silver will be found there.

Mr. Williams, agent of the Central Railroad, told me that he had seen gold panned out of the sand and gravel of ravines in paying quantities, near and at the lead and silver locality, fourteen miles east of Fort Quitman. A spring of good water is said to be near.

The Hon. C. R. Johns, of Austin, has lately shown me some specimens of gold ore, from rocks near the head waters of Little Llano, in Llano county. It is in quartoze and feldspatic (orthoclase) rocks.

ARGENTIFEROUS GALENA, OR. SILVER AND LEAD ORES.

About fourteen miles eastwardly from Fort Quitman, on the western borders of the mountains, argentiferous galena is said to be abundant along a ravine. It is also said to be in veins. We saw numerous large specimens of the ore in the hands of different persons at Fort Quitman. Our specimens have but a small per cent. of silver, being nearly pure galena.

These ores also occur in a spur of the Organ mountains, about one mile north of Franklin, in El Paso county, at the old Padre mine, which is said to have been worked to the depth of about ninety feet. Here argentiferous galena was obtained, and the mine was worked for its silver. The vein filled a fissure of carboniferous limestone, which is overlaid by cretaceous limestones and sandstones a few