THE NAUTILUS. 21 



The topography of Santa Catalina Island is bold and rugged. In 

 many or most places the bluffs rise abruptly out of the sea in per- 

 pendicular masses several hundred feet in height ; occasionally they 

 are lower and assume the form of wall-like buttresses or small 

 rounded headlands jutting out more or less into the sea, back of 

 which the land rises in steep, abrupt elevations more or less broken, 

 to the general level of the main bluff. The summits of the bluffs 

 are sometimes jagged and rough, occasionally rounded off more or 

 less smooth or level, intersected by small gulches, and a few deep 

 canyons. The surface of the interior back of the bluffs gradually 

 rises and is diversified as all mountainous regions are, and stretches 

 off to the foot of " Black Jack," a cone with its peak 2,000 feet high, 

 and " Orizaba " or " Brush Mt.," ridge-like in form with its highest 

 elevation 2,100 feet above the level of the sea. These two peaks are 

 the highest on the island, and are located about its centre. They 

 are a mile or more apart and stand dome-like on the main ridge, 

 which has an average elevation above the sea of about 1,400 feet. 



The main canyons, which are few in number, are narrow and 

 deep. The beds of these great washouts rise but a few feet above 

 sea level for a mile or two inland, where they divide into smaller 

 gulches that rise rapidly into and drain the higher slopes of the main 

 ridge or backbone of the island. 



At the mouth of Silver Canyon, which is really the only washout 

 I saw on the island worthy of the name canyon, there is an immense 

 and grand bluff of volcanic rock that rises perpendicular to almost or 

 quite the level of the main ridge of the island, and crowds the mouth 

 of the canyon into a narrow gorge but a few feet in width, forming 

 a grand mass of " lava flow " for study and contemplation. This 

 canyon is located on the south side of the main ridge about 7 miles 

 from Avalon. The bluff stands on the east side of the canyon, ex- 

 tends a short distance inland, where it becomes broken into steep 

 rocky declivities and abrupt slopes, covered with a thin coating of 

 soil, and overrun by scrubby bushes, cactus and other plants, all 

 mingled together in wild confusion, barring out in most places the 

 foot of man. The smaller or side gulches that drain into and inter- 

 sect the main canyons are numerous, generally short, and sometimes 

 quite deep and canyon-like, with steep sides, and separated by sharp, 

 narrow, barren, rocky ridges that run off in every direction like the 

 arms of an octopus, joining the main ridge higher up and near the 



