VOL. 5] Contributions to Western Botany, No. 1X. 53 
and stems and make the mounds larger. The winter’s rains and 
melting snow percolate through the mass and leach out the alka- 
line elements till very soon we find the mounds occupied by Sarco- 
batus, Kochia, and at length Atriplex confertifolia and species of 
Tetradymia, the Spirostachys having long ago died. Among an- 
nuals we also find Stvepitanthus longirostris as one of the first occu- 
pants of Spirostachys mounds. ‘The further away we get from the 
barren area the larger the Spirostachys mounds become till we are 
five to ten miles off. Shen the mounds are so thick and so many 
that it is difficult to drive through them. After that the Spiros- 
tachys is seldom seen, it having died out and been replaced by 
the species mentioned. From this point also the mounds decrease 
in size, as the new occupants of the mounds are not able to resist 
the wearing action of the wind. At length, we have a plain 
thickly covered with the usual desert shrubs and only slight ele- 
vations around them. ‘This is the process which Nature is now 
using to redeem the Great Salt Lake Desert, and it has completed 
about nine-tenths of its task. 
