[43] This is a part of the Santa Fé trail. The trail forked at Bent's Fort, between the Purgatory and Timpas Creek, one branch ascending the Arkansas to the Huerfano, which it followed to the base of the mountains, thence running south to a pass opposite Taos, in New Mexico, some distance north of Santa Fé; the other ran southwest between Purgatory River and Timpas Creek, through the Raton Mountains of southern Colorado. For the trail east and north of Bent's Fort, and its early history, see _post_, note 108.--ED. [44] This was the Purgatory, which they reached the day after.--ED. [45] Since Long's party pursued a course slightly east of south for thirty-six miles, they must have reached the Purgatory near the northern boundary of Las Animas County. Chaquaqua Creek, just above the town of Bent Cañon, is probably the one followed when the party left the main stream.--ED. [46] Genus _Sciurus_. S. _Grammurus_, SAY.--Line-tailed squirrel. _Body_ cinereous, more or less tinged with ferruginous; _fur_ very coarse, much flattened, canaliculate above, plumbeous or blackish at base, then whitish or ferruginous, tip brownish; above the neck and shoulders the whitish is prevalent; from the middle of the back, the sides and the exterior surface of the legs, the ferruginous colour prevails, the terminal brown of the fur being obsolete; superior and inferior orbits of the eye white; _tail_ moderate, whitish, fur triannulate with black, the base and tip of each hair being whitish, _beneath_ whitish tinged with ferruginous; _thumb tubercle_ armed; _iris_ burnt umber; _pupil_ black. Length to the origin of the tail, 11½ inches. of the tail, 9 --JAMES. [47] This tributary of the Arkansa, designated on the old maps as the "First Fork," is known among the Spaniards of New Mexico, as the river of the souls in purgatory. We emerged from the gloomy solitude of its valley, with a feeling somewhat akin to that which attends escape from a place of punishment.--JAMES. _Comment by Ed._ The Philadelphia edition adds, after the words "First Fork," "as we learned from Bijeau." The Spaniards had two names for the river--Rio Purgatorio and Rio de Las Animas. The French equivalent of the former was Rivière Purgatoire, which appears sometimes in English in corrupted form, Picket-wire. The stream is of considerable size, heading on the slopes of the Culebra Range, near the state boundary, and flowing northeast across Las Animas, and corners of Otero and Bent counties. [48] See p. 171 [p. 260 of our volume xv].--JAMES. [49] Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749-1817), for forty years an instructor in the Mining Academy of Freiberg, Saxony, was perhaps the most renowned geologist and mineralogist of his time; but his system of classification long since proved defective in the light of wider research.--ED.