990 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1895. 



and particularly so about dusk. Dry, hot, leafless, noiseless, and appar- 

 ently lifeless, it conveys vividly to the imagination the idea of a burnt- 

 out world. (See Plates 3 and 8.) 



The writer is informed by Chief Botanist F. V. Coville, of the 

 Department of Agriculture, that this plant was first described by Dr. 

 Albert Kellogg nearly forty years ago, under the name of Idriacolum- 

 naris,^ a new species of the family Fouquieraceie, the description being 

 based on specimens brought from Lower California by Doctor J. A. 

 Veatch. The validity of the species was afterwards questioned and the 

 plant doubtfully referred to Foiiquiera sjnnosa, until in 1889 Mr. T. S. 

 Brandegee fully established its distinctness from that species.^ 



As we ascended the mountains and jjassed the crest to the plateau 

 on the east, the country became, if possible, more and more forbidding. 

 The scanty soil and scattering growth of desert plants quite fail to 

 cover the rocks, which stand out bare and hot, weathered to a dull 

 reddish color. There is absolutely nothing that can cast a shade or 

 boast a thornless leaf. Yet there were beautiful and interesting things, 

 if one could but stop under that scorching sun, to admire. A barrel- 

 shaped cactus from inches to 4 feet in height, with long strong sharply 

 recurved thorns, shows delicate green and pink tints, and often has a 

 circle of beautiful deep scarlet flowers on the top. The agave begins 

 to appear; a little insignificant cluster of leaves growing on vertical 

 cliffs takes the form of a rose, and is coated with a flour-like bloom. 

 The tints are delicate greenish white, sometimes pinkish, and when one 

 can rid himself of the idea that the whole country is accursed, he finds 

 it beautiful in the extreme. 



We camped that night (the 22d) on the banks of a stream no longer 

 running, but yielding in standing pools sufficient water for our imme- 

 diate needs, passing on the way the only habitation seen between 

 Eosario and San Juan de Dios. Mesquite grew abundantly along the 

 dry bottoms, and there was a plentiful supply of quail, but no other 

 forms of animal life were seen. From this point to San Juan de Dios 

 the most striking feature of the landscape are the rounded, boss-like 

 forms of the hills, due to the weathering of the granular, massive dia- 

 bases and diorites of which they are composed. The region is one of 

 limited rainfall, but subject to great diurnal changes of temperature. 

 The agents of disintegration are therefore heat and cold, and as a result 

 the debris from the massive eruptive rocks consists mainly of angular 

 fragments, each of the larger fragments consisting of an aggregate of 

 minerals, scarcely at all discolored by oxidation, and differing from the 

 parent rock only in their state of partial disaggregation. This gravel 

 and sand, disturbed but little by other than wind erosion, accumulates 

 on the slopes until the outcrops become largely buried in their own 

 debris and partake of the rounded character noted above. During the 



>Proc. Cal. Acad., II, 1859-60. 

 2Proc. Cal. Acad,, 2 ser., II, 1889, 



