30 E7HNO-BOTANY OF THE COAHUILLA INDIANS 



sand, means almost certain death. Madness relieves the sufferer of 

 sensibility long before the end comes, and nearly every year lives are 

 thus lost within this fatal area. Springs occasionally peep out from 

 beneath an overhanging boulder or cliff along the mountain side or rise 

 in small pools along the elsewhere dry bed of a stream. These twinkling 

 lakelets are called by the Coahm\\a.s pal- he-push-em or " eyes of water." 

 Down on the desert, along the dry washes of the Colorado river over- 

 flow, are numerous lagoons which hold water for many months at a 

 time, and in certain regions underground seepage is present and may 

 be reached by digging. Such springs are the " Indian Wells," a 

 former station on the Yuma road above Indio, and farther south 

 " Coyote Wells." At Salton, in the most depressed portion of the 

 desert, a lake forty miles long and several wide, rose suddenly in the 

 summer of 1892, causing considerable consternation and many strange 

 rumors. Investigation showed that there was taking place an unusu- 

 ally large overflow from the Colorado. The excessive saltiness of the 

 water, however, occasioned at the time theories of subterranean com- 

 munication with the Gulf. It might be stated here that the lagoon at 

 Salton is excessively saline, and having of old been a source of salt 

 supply for the Indians, even from the coast, is now worked by the New 

 Liverpool Salt Co. 



The evidence of volcanic action is everywhere present. Volcanic 

 rock and pieces of pumice abound. Black lava buttes and extinct 

 craters, notably the beautiful and perfect crater, below the line, known as 

 the Cerro Prieto, rise from the plain, and thermal springs are common. 



But perhaps the most striking phenomena of any part of the 

 American desert are the "mud volcanoes." These "volcanoes" are 

 found in two regions on the Colorado, one near the south end of 

 Salton sink, the other near Volcano lake in the Cocopah country of 

 Lower California. They first attracted attention and perhaps date 

 from the heavy earthquakes that occurred on the desert in 1852 soon 

 after the establishment of the military post of Fort Yuma. Those 

 near Volcano lake were noticeable for the heavy cloud of steam they 

 threw off, and were at once visited by Lieutenant Heintzleman, com- 

 manding officer of the post. 1 Later these were visited by Dr. John L. 

 Le Conte, 2 while those near the Salton sink were well described a 

 little later by Dr. Veatch. 3 They are rather boiling springs of mud or 



1 EMORY, Mexican Boundary Survey, Vol. I, p. 105; Pac. R. R. Reports, Vol. V, p. 115. 



2 " An Account of Some Volcanic Springs in the Desert of the Colorado, in Southern California," 

 American Journal of Science and Arts, Second Series, Vol. XIX, May, 1855. 



3 " Notes of a Visit to the Mud Volcanoes in the Colorado Desert in the Month of July, 1857," Pro- 

 ceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, 1857, p. 104; republished in American Journal of 

 Sciences and Arts, Second Series, 1858, Vol. XXVI, p. 286. 



