46 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Washington Territory, but which is a smaller and useless plant, easily 

 distinguished by its ferruginous, scurfy leaves. 



Gooseberries and Curraxts. — In the valley of the Mississippi 

 and in the mountains of the Far "West, a large number of species of 

 Jiihes are found which, for the most part would be called gooseberries, 

 but among them at least one should be considered as a currant. Some 

 of these plants are showy and interesting, but they are of very little 

 utility. Several of them fruit abundantly, but the berries are insipid 

 or even disagreeable to the taste. In the drier portions of Oregon 

 and Northern California a species of JRibcs is very abundant and a 

 noticeable feature in the vegetation. It forms tufts or thickets which 

 in the late summer are loaded with red and attractive fruit, but it is 

 only a disappointment, the flavor being flat and insipid, so that it is 

 never eaten by man. In the mountains of Utah I have seen a large 

 and strong species bearing in great abundance a nearly smooth, pur- 

 plish-brown berry. No small fruit could be more inviting, but it is 

 never eaten ; the taste is disagreeable, and the inhabitants have a 

 conviction that it is poisonous. 



Nuts. — The Indians of the Eastern States valued more highly, and 

 gathered more abundantly than the whites have since done, the chest- 

 nuts, hickory-nuts, walnuts, and butternuts that are here so abundant. 

 For these the Western Indians are compelled to content themselves 

 with acorns and pine-nuts, for there are no chestnut nor hickory trees 

 in all the Western country. The only nuts, indeed, to be found there 

 are the chinquapin of Oregon ( Castanoj^sis chrysophylla) and the 

 nogal of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas {Juglans riqyestris), 

 the latter a perfect "black walnut," but not larger than a boy's 

 marble. 



Pixe-Bark. — One article of subsistence sometimes employed by 

 the Indians is only resorted to when they are driven to great straits 

 by hunger. Around many of the watering-places in the pine-forests 

 of Oregon and California the trees of Pinus potiderosa may be seen 

 stripped of their bark for a space of three or four feet near the base of 

 the trunk. This has been accomplished by cutting with a hatchet a 

 line around the tree as high up as one could conveniently reach, and 

 another lower down, so that the bark, severed above and below, could 

 be removed in strips. At certain seasons of the year a mucilaginous 

 film (the liburnura) separates the bark from the wood of the trunk. 

 Part of this film adheres to each surface and may be scraped off. The 

 resulting mixture of mucilage-cells and half-formed wood is nutritious 

 and not unpalatable, so that, as a last resort, it may be used as a de- 

 fense against starvation. The frequency with which signs of its hav- 

 ing been resorted to are met with is a striking indication of the un- 

 certainties and irregularities of the supply department among savages. 



