1883.] NATURAL SCIENCES OP PHILADELPHIA. 137 



The water of the Upper Klamath Lake is slightly alkaline to 

 the taste, and less so than that of Pyrainid Lake. The waters of 

 Goose and Silver Lakes are similar to it, while that of Warner's 

 Lake is rather more alkaline. All of these lakes abound in fishes. 

 Summer Lake, Christmas Lake, and others, are intensely alka- 

 line to the taste. 



The locality which has furnished the greatest number of fossil 

 remains of the pliocene or postpliocene ages, is known as Fossil 

 Lake. It is twenty miles east of Silver Lake, in the western part 

 of the Oregon Desert. It is a shallow depression of perhaps a 

 hundred acres in extent, where drinkable water may be obtained 

 by digging. The soil is a mixture of sand and clay, vvhich supports 

 a more or less luxuriant growth of Artemisia. Bones of extinct 

 and recent species of vertebrata, thoroughly fossilized, mixed 

 with worked flints,^ and shells of Carinifex neioherryi bleached 

 snow-white, lie in profusion in this light material. Within a short 

 distance of this locality the soil becomes sandy, and a few miles 

 northeastwai'd the surface of the country consists of sand-dunes, 

 which rise to a height of one hundred feet. The sand is con- 

 stantly moving to the northeast under the influence of the 

 prevailing southwest wind, creeping up the long southwest slope 

 of the dunes, and falling in a fine shower over the apex of the 

 vertical northeast face. This tract is perhaps twenty miles in 

 diameter.^ A smaller tract of a similar character lies at the 

 northern end of Summer Lake, where the sand is piled up 

 against the basaltic hills that bound its valley on the east. I have 

 given lists of the vertebrate fossils of this region, as cited in the 

 accompanying foot-notes. 



As described by Emmons,^ Pyramid Lake is thirty miles long, 

 by twelve wide. It is surrounded by mountains of eruptive 

 granite, trachyte and basalt. According to King, the level of this 

 lake rose, between 1867 and 1871, nine feet, while that of the 

 connected lake, Winnemucca, rose twenty-two feet. This lake is 

 exceedingly rich in life, as will be pointed out by and by. Messrs. 

 Jordan and Bean ^ have catalogued several species of fishes as 



^ See American Naturalist, 1878, p. 125. 



2 See Bulletin of the U. S. Geol. Survey of the Territories, F. V. 

 Hayden, iv, p. 389 ; v, p. 48. 



3 Survey of the 40th Parallel, 1, p. 506. 



* Kept, of the Chief of Engineers, U. S. A, Expl. and Surv. W. of 100th 

 Mer., G. M. Wheeler, 8vo, 1878, p. 187. 

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