10 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



wide beds of dried and cracked mud, covered with a white 

 alkaline efflorescence. The chief stream in the California por- 

 tion of the Enclosed Basin is the Mojave, which rises on the 

 northern slope of Mount San Bernardino, and, after running 

 about one hundred miles in a northeastward direction, sinks 

 in the sand. The Mojave receives no tributaries after it leaves 

 the side of Mount San Bernardino. After sinking, it rises 

 again ; or rather, pools of water are found in the low places of 

 its bed, the water evidently soaking through the sand and fol- 

 lowing the bed of the stream. The next stream in importance 

 is Owen's River, which runs southward seventy-five miles along 

 the foot of the Sierra Nevada, and terminates in Owen Lake, 

 which lies in latitude 36 25', and is fifteen miles long by nine 

 wide. Northward, one hundred miles from Owen Lake, is 

 Mono Lake, eight miles long and six wide, sometimes called 

 " the Dead Sea of California." No fish can live in the water, 

 which is so heavy with saline substances that the human body 

 floats in it very lightly ; though it is so strongly alkaline that 

 it scalds the skin. In the midst of the lake is an island sev- 

 eral miles long. While the greater part of the Enclosed Basin 

 is high above the level of the sea, there is a portion of it, called 

 " Death Valley," the sink of the Amargosa River, thirty miles 

 long and ten wide, between 36 5' and 36 35', three hundred 

 and seventy-seven feet below the sea-level, one of the driest 

 and most desolate parts of that basin of deserts. About lati- 

 tude 40, the Sierra Nevada seems to divide or fork one 

 branch running northward, in the line of the main chain ; the 

 other northwestward to Mount Shasta. Between these two 

 branches, and between 40 and 42, is a high table-land or 

 plateau, about one hundred and twenty miles long, and five 

 thousand feet above the ocean level, belonging to the Enclosed 

 Basin. The main stream in this plateau is Susan River, which 

 after a course of forty miles in an eastward direction, empties 

 into Honey Lake, which is twelve miles long by five wide. 

 Northwestward from Honey Lake, and distant thirty mile? 



