Note II'-7 — Chapter II · ITINERARY, CONTINUED: THROUGH OLD MEXICO, IN CHIHUAHUA, DURANGO, AND COAHUILA, TO THE PRESIDIO GRANDE, MARCH 22D-MAY 31ST, 1807.

The hiatus in the text is to be filled by El Peñol or Hacienda del Petrero; Pike marks "Delpetrero" on his map, the last place he notes before reaching Chihuahua. Neither of those names appears on the late maps before me, but both were formerly employed for the well-known locality. Wislizenus maps El Peñol, where he camped Aug. 22d, 1846, and speaks of the place as a large hacienda, 28 m. from his last camp (probably the same as Pike's of the 30th) and about 40 m. from Chihuahua. "The creek of the same name passing by the hacienda is the principal affluent of the lake of Encinillas; by the rains it was swelled to a torrent, and its roaring waves, rushing over all obstacles, sounded in the stillness of night like a cataract." Pike has not a word of this lake, though it is usually a conspicuous feature of the great plain he has just traversed, to the W. of the road. He maps it, quite small, by the name of "Lago de Sn. Martin." Laguna de las Encinillas, in English Lake of Live Oaks, is a body of water whose extent varies greatly according to season and the weather, being sometimes 15 or 20 m. long, though usually less than this; Wislizenus estimated its length when he saw it to be 15 m., with a width of 3 m. on an average. Gregg says, tom. cit., p. 81: "This lake is ten or twelve miles long by two or three in width, and seems to have no outlet during the greatest freshets, though fed by several small constant-flowing streams from the surrounding mountains. The water of this lake during the dry season is so strongly impregnated with nauseous and bitter salts as to render it wholly unpalatable to man and beast. The most predominant of these noxious substances is a species of alkali, known there by the title of tequesquite. It is often seen oozing out from the surface of marshy grounds, about the table plains of all Northern Mexico, forming a grayish crust, and is extensively used in the manufacture of soap, and sometimes by the bakers even for raising bread."