pg 029: Second annual report of the Geological and Agricultural Survey of Texas Publication 25425061

29

with salt, soda and magnesia; temperature of one, one hundred and ten degrees, and the other ninety-four degrees. They are three thousand two hundred and sixty feet above the sea.

Southwest of there, in Mexico, at no great distance, are hot springs, hot enough to boil an egg or blister the hand. So said Mr. Russell, an American merchant of Presidio, who has lately visited these springs.

These springs, both Texan and Mexican, are in a region of igneous rocks, of dolerite and trappean form. Large dikes of these are in the limestones near and in the vicinity of the springs.

MASTODON AND ELEPHANT.

Bones of the mastodon and elephant have been found in nearly every part of the State, showing that these huge animals were quite numerous in the olden time, say a few thousand years ago, when man was also living.

Bones of the ancient elephant were found recently in digging a cellar at Austin, at the depth of five or six feet in a dirt bed, where it would not be strange to find the bones of man. The teeth show that it was the ancient elephant (elephas primagenius), different from the one now living.

PAINTED ROCKS AND CAVES.

At the Cerro Hueco, or Waco Tanks, about thirty miles a little north of east from Isleta, are painted rocks and caves. The Cerro Hueco is a small group of granite mountains, abounding in caves and precipices. Some rocks have perpendicular faces from three hundred to four hundred feet high, and one, Blanchard's Tower, has a height of more than five hundred feet above the plain. On the perpendicular sides of some of these, and in cave-like hollows beneath overhanging rocks, are numerous rude paintings of men, women, and. various animals, including birds and serpents. In one place there is a conspicuous figure of the sun facing the east and sending forth his rays. The paintings were made with red, blue, black and white paints, with little or no regard to perspective.

Mr. Blanchard, of Isleta, who accompanied us, stated that about sixteen miles southeast of this locality there also are similar paintings in an excellent state of preservation