992 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1895. 



they slioot up iu a surprisingly short space of time a single stalk, 

 sometimes 10 feet in height and 4 inches iu diameter at the base, bear- 

 ing at the top a raceme of honey yellow, trumpet-shaped flowers. As 

 the stalk shoots upward the leaves yield to it their stored-up juices, 

 shrivel, and die. Thousands of these were passed during the day, in all 

 stages of youth, maturity, and old age. 



Continuing in a general easterly direction we soon reached the limit 

 of the plateau and plunged, by means of steep and often dangerous 

 trails, abruptly down several hundred feet where, for a distance of 20 

 miles or more, we traversed an undulating plain covered with sand and 

 loose bowlders, some rounded and others sharply angular, with lake- 

 bed exposures wherever the now dry water courses were cut to a suffi- 

 cient depth. The few antelope seen at a distance were the only signs 

 of animal life noted during the day. We camped that night (the 24th) 

 in the sand of a dry, shallow water course, resuming our journey at 

 3.30 the next morning. Sharply-serrated mountain peaks, suggestive 

 of volcanic cones, were seen in the distance, and about noon our plain 

 ends in a precipitous canyon cutting across heavy bedded, dense, blue 

 gray quartzites, which so strongly resemble limestones as to cause 

 them to be mistaken for this rock until they came to be tested in the 

 laboratory. In addition to this quarzite is a finely fissile, nearly black, 

 mica-schist, both rocks standing neai'ly on edge and with a strike some 

 20° west of north and south. A dike of brecciated felsitic rock was also 

 noted. As the disintegration here, as farther to the west, is mainly 

 due to temjjerature changes, the schistose rocks weather into splintery 

 forms and the general topographic features may be described as ragged 

 in the extreme. The drainage from this point is toward the gulf, 

 through ravines, arroyos, and canyons innumerable. 



We find water and make our camp on the afternoon of the 25th in 

 what is locally known as the Tule Arroyo, some 15 miles from the gulf 

 coast. Two insignificant little springs bubble up here in the dry bed 

 of the stream, furnishing, when first gathered, a pleasant sparkling 

 fluid so highly charged with carbonic acid as to resemble the soda water 

 of the drug stores. On standing, however, it soon lost its effervescent 

 property and became so stale as to impart a decidedly disagreeable 

 taste even to the coffee. Our first meal here consisted of stewed 

 potatoes and dark lieavy Mexican bread, as tough and indigestible as 

 so much dried putty. Fortunately for us our Mexican guide went 

 down the arroyo toward the gulf and returned before night with the 

 carcasses of two mountain sheep, which kept us supplied with meat for 

 the remainder of the trip, the atmosphere being so dry that there was 

 no difficulty whatever in preserving it. The heat of the arroyo during 

 the day was intense. The high walls on either hand afforded shade 

 during the early morning and late afternoon, but during the middle 

 portion of the day life was only rendered tolerable to those who stayed 

 in camp by lying at full length in the sand under an immense mass of 

 rock that had fallen from the cliffs above. 



