GENERAL ACCOUNT. 11 



Malheur and Harney lakes, and thence southward along the Dunder and 

 Blitzen River to the base of Steins Mountains. From this point we 

 went southwest across Catlow and Guano valleys and across the north- 

 western corner of Nevada into the Warner Mountains of California; 

 thence southward to Smoke Creek and eastward into Nevada again, 

 across the deserts of Smoke Creek and Black Rock, and thence south- 

 ward into the Humboldt Valley near Lovelock. Our next trip of 100 

 miles was in a general southwesterly direction to Reno, where the 

 work for the season in this region was discontinued. 



GENERAL ACCOUNT. 



The region indicated in the map (PI. I) is one of great diversity of 

 climate, elevation, and soil conditions, and a complete account of these 

 features is therefore obviously impossible in such a publication as this. 

 In brief it may be stated that the areas of greatest humidity are located 

 in the Okanogan region and in the Wenatchee, Blue, and Warner moun- 

 tains. The best grazing areas of the Okanogan region are at an altitude 

 of 1,500 to 3,500 feet; in the Big Bend of the Columbia, 1,000 to 1,500 

 feet; in the prairies of the Blue Mountains of Oregon and the Warner 

 mountains of California, 1,500 to 6,000 feet, and in the general desert 

 basins of Nevada and Oregon, about 4,000 feet. The annual precipi- 

 tation of the region in general may be accepted as 5 to 10 inches, but 

 of course there is -a great variation in the mountains and in the vicinity 

 of our route from Ellensburg to the British border. Accurate data 

 regarding higher and less accessible localities are, however, very scarce, 

 and it can only be said that in portions of the region the rainfall is 

 much greater than the above figures indicate. 



The soils are, for the greater part, basaltic, i. e., derived from dis- 

 integrated volcanic rock, and are usually spoken of, especially in the 

 northern half of the region, as volcanic ash. This may be taken to 

 represent the entire Big Bend country, as well as the greater part of 

 the deserts of Oregon and Nevada visited. The Blue and the Warner 

 mountains, as well as portions of the Okanogan u Bunch-Grass Hills/ 1 

 are of still, heavy clays which support a different vegetation as well 

 as one which is less susceptible of injury from tramping of stock than 

 the looser ashy soils of the drier and usually losver regions repre- 

 sented by the desert plains and the fertile lands of the Big Bend. In 

 the lower portions of all the basins, as well as in the poorly drained 

 areas along the river bottoms, are situated intensely alkaline stretches; 

 these arc especially characteristic of the region traversed between the 

 Blue Mountains of Oregon and Reno, Nev. These areas in this region 

 support no vegetation whatever over extensive tracts and arc known 

 locally as "sleek deserts.' 1 They are the remains of old or temporary 

 lakes, which receive constant accretions of soluble salts from the 



