Guadalupe Hidalgo, for running the Mexican Boundary, and
subsequently Exploring Engineer and Surveyor of the Southern
Pacific Railroad, has probably seen more of the proposed
Territory of Arizona than any other person, his statements in
reference to that region, embodied in a report to the Hon., the
Secretary of the Interior, from actual field reconnoissances six
years ago, will be read with much interest, particularly as since
then, repeated developments in that country have proved the
correctness of his judgment; his opinions are, therefore, of much
importance, as expressed in his able report. It will be
recollected that this was then Mexican Territory. Colonel Gray
says:

"The public, I think have been misled by misrepresentations made
in regard to the resources of the region of country lying along
the Gila and upon the line proposed for a railroad at or near the
parallel of 32 degrees north latitude. That portion of country
east of the Rio Grande I can say but little of from personal
observation, having been over but apart of the ground near the
eastern division in Texas, and that in the vicinity of El Paso.
At both these points, however, a fine country exists. Upon the
Gila river grows cotton of the most superior kind. Its nature is
not unlike that of the celebrated Sea Island cotton, possessing
an equally fine texture, and, if anything, more of a silky fibre.
The samples I procured at the Indian villages, from the rudely
cultivated fields of the Pimas and Maricopas, have been spoken of
as an extraordinary quality. Wheat, corn, and tobacco, together
with beans, melons, etc., grow likewise upon the banks and in the
valleys bordering the Gila and its tributaries. The sugar cane,
too, I believe, will be found to thrive in this section of the