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river, and in the troughs between these folds water may be had at various depths and in several of the formations.

At Toyah, flowing water was found at a depth of 800 feet in the Carboniferous strata. At that place the Cretaceous overlies the Carboniferous, and in that formation a bed of water was also found, but which would not flow at the surface, although it rose quite a distance in the well. It is probable that there are places where this water will flow at the surface.

There is a flowing well at Roswell, in New Mexico, that comes from the bottom of the Tertiary, or the upper part of the Triassic.

There are about twenty flowing wells at Pecos City, west of the Pecos river. The water is abundant, and comes from a depth of from one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet. The probabilities are that the water comes from the Quaternary. At least it comes from the drift in the old river channel.

No prospecting for artesian water has been done away from the railroad, and it is more than probable that large amounts of water will be found at various depths in many localities when proper effort shall be made. The whole country is so covered up with drift from the mountains that it is almost impossible to determine anything about the underlying formation, and the consequence is that one is as liable to sink a well at the apex of the anticlinal as in the trough. In the latter case the water would be reached, while in the other the chances are that it would be a dry hole.

I see no reason why the water-bearing stratum at Toyah might not be reached at Pecos City at a depth of less than two thousand feet.

MINERALS.

The only minerals of any economic value in the district over which I traveled this year is gypsum and common salt.

The gypsum is in heavy beds in the upper part of the Permian formation east of the Staked Plains from the line of the Texas and Pacific Railroad to the north line of the State.

West of the Pecos river, near the line between Texas and New Mexico, in the Permian formation there are heavy beds of gypsum, which are in all probability a continuation of the beds found east of the Staked Plains.

The uses to which gypsum is applied need not be discussed in this paper.

SALT.—The deposits of salt seen during the present year's explorations were in the shallow lakes on the eastern edge of the Plains, and in the country west of the western escarpment.

Just north of the line of Texas and Pacific Railroad,—miles east of Marienfeld, there are—lakes that at the time of our visit were incrusted with very fine white salt to the thickness of—inches.