146 Life of Upper Lake Region. 



covered an important fossil bed, and the next 

 summer by kindly furnishing a team and send- 

 ing his son as guide, he gave the writer the 

 pleasure of visiting this Silver lake country. 

 Considering the narrow area of this fossil 

 bed, a surprisingly large number and variety 

 of fossils were found and so brought to the 

 light of scientific report. The last part of the 

 journey took us through a monotonous dead 

 level covered with sage < brush, until finally 

 we reached the home of a ranchman on the 

 shore of one of those strange alkali lakes 

 whose flats are at this season covered with 

 a thick inflorescence of alkali. Here we left 

 our wagon and the next morning started on 

 horseback for the fossil beds. After traveling 

 about eight miles we saw, from the eminence 

 of a sand dune, an apparently circular depres- 

 sion four or five miles across, in the lowest 

 portion of which was a small pond, or lake, 

 surrounded by grass and tule rushes. Per- 

 haps two miles to the leeward this depression 

 was bordered by a line of sand dunes, unques- 

 tionably formed from sands blown from the 



