TEE ALKALINE AND BOEACIC LAKES OF CALIFORNIA. 



ITS 



law with a personal government of the universe. 

 In this chapter, as well as in some others, he will 

 probably fail to satisfy the holders of extreme 

 views on either side, but — though success in the 

 attempt can almost necessarily only be partial — 

 in his book, as in his "Presidential Address" at 

 the Brighton meeting of the British Association, 

 he has done much to reconcile aspects of truth 

 which cannot be in real opposition to each other. 

 We have not hitherto been able to afford him 

 space to speak for himself, but we must cite, as 

 the conclusion of this article, the paragraph 

 which terminates his volume. We can only 

 prefix to it the expression of a hope that this 

 volume may not only be read, but studied, and 

 that it may be studied with especial care by all 

 who are responsible for the education of the 

 young. The paragraph itself is as follows : 



" Thus, then, if theologians •will once bring 

 themselves to look upon Nature, or the material 

 universe, as the embodiment of the Divine thought, 

 and at the scientific study of Nature as the endeav- 

 or to discover and apprehend that thought (to have 

 ' thought the thoughts of God ' was the privilege 

 most highly esteemed by Kepler), they will see 

 that it is their duty, instead of holding themselves 

 altogether aloof from the pursuit of Science, or 

 stopping short in the search for scientific truth 

 wherever it points toward a result that seems in 

 discordance with their preformed conceptions, to 

 apply themselves honestly to the study of it, as a 

 revelation of the Mind and Will of the Deity, 

 which is certainly not less authoritative than that 

 which he has made to us through the recorded 



thoughts of religiously-inspired men, and which is 

 fitted, in many cases, to afford its true interpreta- 

 tion. And they cannot more powerfully attract 

 the scientific student to religion than by taking up 

 his highest and grandest thought and placing it in 

 that religious light which imparts to it a yet great- 

 er glory. They will, then perceive that although, 

 if God be outside the physical universe, those ex- 

 tended ideas of its vastness which modern science 

 opens to us remove him farther and farther from 

 us, yet, if he be embodied in it, every such exten- 

 sion enlarges our notion of his being. As Mr. 

 Martineau has nobly said : ' What, indeed, have 

 we found by moving out along all radii into the In- 

 finite ? That the whole is woven together in one 

 sublime tissue of intellectual relations, geometric 

 and physical — the realized original, of which all 

 our science is but the partial copy. That Science 

 is the crowning product and supreme expression 

 of human reason. . . . Unless, therefore, it takes 

 more mental faculty to construe a universe than to 

 cause it, to read the Book of Nature than to write 

 it, we must more than ever look upon its sublime 

 face as the living appeal of Thought to Thought.' 

 But the theologian cannot rise to the height of this 

 conception unless he is ready to abandon the wor- 

 ship of every idol that is ' graven by art and man's 

 device ' — to accept as a fellow-worker with himself 

 every truth-seeker who uses the understanding 

 given him by ' the inspiration of the Almighty ' in 

 tracing out the divine order of the universe, and 

 to admit into Christian communion every one who 

 desires to be accounted a disciple of Christ, and 

 humbly endeavors to follow in the steps of his Di- 

 vine Master." 



— London Times. 



THE ALKALINE AND BOEACIC LAKES OF CALIFORNIA. 



By J. AETIIUE PHILLIPS, F. G. S. 



TMMEDIATELY east of the range of the Sierra 

 ■*- Nevada is an extensive region of alkaline 

 lakes and hot springs, of which very large areas 

 are almost totally barren, the only vegetation 

 consisting of wild-sage, yucca, a few cacti, and 

 scanty tufts of bunch-grass. 



This district affords, in its many extensive 

 craters and in its lavas, basalts, and obsidians, 

 the most conclusive evidence of its volcanic ori- 

 gin, while its solfataras and boiling springs may 

 be regarded as the last representatives of active 

 vulcanicity. The region is one of great scientific 

 interest, and, as it may eventually become indus- 

 trially important, it has been thought that a 



brief description of the district, as well as of 

 that of the borax-lakes, lying on the western 

 side of the Sierra, might not be without general 

 interest. 



The most remarkable of the alkaline lakes of 

 this portion of California are Mono and Owen's 

 Lakes. The former lies in a depression occupy- 

 ing a portion of an elevated plateau of desert 

 land, situated at the eastern base of the Sierra 

 Nevada between the head-waters of Owen's and 

 Walker's Rivers. The distance from the summit 

 of the range to the lake-shore is about six miles, 

 and the difference of elevation is about 6,000 feet. 

 On all sides, excepting toward the Sierra, this 



