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.
The Rio Grande was finally recognized by Mexico as the Texas boundary in the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Depending on how it is measured, the Rio Grande is the twenty-second longest river in the world and the fourth or fifth longest in North America. It drains more than 40,000 square miles in Texas alone.