BOTANY OF SAN MIGUEL. 75 
western Archipelago.’ Its whole area is only fourteen? square 
miles; the length about eight and a half, the average breadth 
some two and three fourths miles. It is the westernmost and 
farthest seaward of them all, lying at a distance of nearly 
fifty miles in an air line from Santa Barbara, but, being also 
almost directly to the windward as the winds average, can 
seldom be reached without making a voyage of eighty miles. 
It is therefore seldom visited; and I could not but account 
' myself fortunate in having an opportunity of undertaking a 
voyage thither immediately after having accomplished so fair 
a beginning in the way of an exploration of Santa Cruz. 
A very small sloop, bearing a cargo of fence boards and five 
souls of us, sailed forth from Santa Barbara at noon of the 
nineteenth of August; and that our voyage was not without 
adventure will be indicated by the testimony that we did not 
reach the shores of San Miguel until nine days later. 
I had anticipated that the vegetation of this islet would ex- 
hibit a decided character of its own. I had always under- 
stood that it was a low sandy island, presenting none of the 
rough mountainous characteristics of the rest of the archi- 
pelago. I had observed, from the mountains behind Santa 
Barbara, that on days when Anacapa, Santa Cruz, and Santa 
Rosa were in bright and cloudless sunshine, only a low fog- 
bank indicated the locality of San Miguel. My zeal for the 
botanical exploration of it had suffered but a slight abate- 
ment by remarks vouchsafed on the eve of my departure by 
some who had been there; one gentleman averring that it 
was all a naked sand-bank, and another that it bore no tree or 
bush of any kind, but only great beds of abronias and mesem- 
brianthemums ; and all my best anticipations were revived as, 
in the middle of an afternoon, under a propitious sky tempo- 
rarily cleared of all mist and cloud, we passed around Point 
Botanical Gazette, xi. 197 & 330. * 
* The dimensions herein given are all taken from the Pacific Coast 
Pilot, Edition 4 now in press, the manuscript of which was kindly placed 
for my inspection as regards this island by my obliging friend videmur. 
Professor George Davidson of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. ` 
Issued July 12, 1887. 
