Photographers captured surveyors working in precarious places.
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They made detailed notes about each photograph:
”Arastra Gulch, looking up from across the Animas, which is here sunk far out of sight, in the gorge running across the foreground of the ravine. The wrecks of the old arrastras, that were put in some 12 or 14 years ago, in Baker’s time, have given the gulch its name. It was also worked in that time for gold in placers, but with no success. It is now more favorably known through its silver mines, which are among the richest of this region. San Juan County, Colorado. 1874.”
Sometimes they took stereo photographs like this one of Dr. Hayden looking over the shoulder of sketch artist Walter Paris.
Sketch of rock formation by a Hayden Survey artist.
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Photographs by William Henry Jackson from the U.S. Geological Survey Photographic Library
