OF WASHINGTON. 377 



The Salton Sea or Lake is one of the greatest natural wonders of 

 the world. It is a shallow deposit, only one or two feet in depth, of 

 solid saline matter and is 8 miles wide and 20 miles long, 

 surrounded by saline springs which build up mounds and cones 

 of saline matter and matted roots of cane grass, back of which is 

 the ordinary desert vegetation, gradually disappearing as it de 

 scends from the level of 260 feet to about 265 feet, at which point 

 only one plant flourishes, and this plant is the only peculiar saline 

 plant, outside of the grasses, to be found in the basin as far as I 

 know. This plant is Allenrolfea occidentalis , and I mail you 

 herewith a few sticks which contain larvae of a Ptinid beetle 1 and 

 also a Clerid enemy and perhaps some other things. It yields at 

 last to the solid indurated crust of salt and soda which becomes 

 finally an unbroken plain of pure salt, the lowest depression being 

 280 feet below sea level at four miles from the edge of the salt 

 plain. Here the soda sinks below and forms a. layer about a foot 

 thick and solid as a rock. Above this is a layer of black mud and 

 then a surface layer of pure salt from a foot to 18 inches in thick 

 ness. The surface of the salt is dry and hard, resembling ice and 

 glistening in the tropical sun with the million scintillations of a 

 polar ice floe ; white, harder and smoother than a sheet of snow. 



I reached Salton late on Saturday (March 28). Sunday was a 

 fine day and I devoted the morning to an examination of the salt 

 springs and the fauna of the basin. The line of debris from the 

 great overflow of the waters of the Colorado River in 1891 was 

 plainly visible upon the surface of the salt near the shores. But 

 every stick and floated railroad tie was solidly fastened down and 

 only a few spiders lurked under the fragment, evidently living 

 upon insects blown out upon the salt plain. 



Far back from the margin of the lake the earth is stiffened with 

 saline matter, and the feet break through as in walking over cul 

 tivated fields on frosty mornings in spring. Here there is no 

 vegetation except the Allenrolfea bush growing upon small 

 mounds, and the grass about the salt springs, but even this last 

 is encumbered and encrusted with snowy incrustations. There 

 is little chance for insect life because of these thick incrustations, 

 which bind down and solidify every particle of soil and wood, 

 but on the mounds and about the roots of the Allenrolfea beneath 

 the thin crust is a dry and dusty soil, largely consisting of pulver 

 ized saline matter, and here are a few Hemiptera and spiders ; 

 and in the larger stems of the Allenrolfea I found the larvae men 

 tioned before. Where the springs break forth in larger volume and 

 form small flowing streamlets there are patches of grass encrusted 

 with mineral matter, and even the mud along these rivulets is 



'The Ptinid beetle was successful}' bred at Washington and proves to 

 be Ctenobium cinereum Horn, originally described from southwestern 

 Texas. The Clerid larva has not been bred. E. A. S. 



