A slip (also sometimes called a scoop, scraper, or road scraper) was the common implement for moving dirt when doing such things as digging ponds or making fills where large volumes of dirt were needed.
RIO GRANDE. The Rio Grande rises in Rio Grande National Forest, San Juan County, Colorado (at 37Â°47' N, 107Â°32' W), as a clear, spring and snow-fed mountain stream 12,000 feet above sea level. Its origin is at the Continental Divide in the San Juan Mountains.
Rio Grande; Nueces River. Mexico refused to sell California to US thinking that Texas' southern border was on the Nueces River; Polk and special envoy to Mexico City John Slidell, asserted that the border of TX is to the south, along the Rio Grande.