HABITAT 

 Location and Area 



Seriland, the home from time immemorial of the Seii iiidiaiis, lies iii 

 uoithwestern Mexico, forming a part of the State of Sonora. It com- 

 prises Tiburou island, the largest and most elevated insular body in 

 Gulf of California, together with a few islets and an adjacent tract of 

 mainland; the center of the district being marked approximately by 

 the intersection of the parallel of 20° with the meridian of 112°. The 

 territory is divided by the narrow but turbulent strait. El Intiernillo. 

 It is bounded oik the west and south by the waters i)f the gulf with its 

 eastward extensions to Kino bay, ou the east by a nearly impassable 

 desert, and on the north by a waterless stretch of sandy ))lains and 

 rugged sierras 50 to 100 miles in extent. 



Tiburou island is about oO miles in length from north to south and 

 12 to 20 miles in width; its area, with that of the adjacent islets, is 

 barely 500 square miles. The mainland tract held by the Seri is with- 

 out definite boundary; measured to the middle of the limiting desert 

 on the east and halfway across the waterless zone on the north, its 

 area may be put at 1,500 square miles. To this land area of 2,000 

 square miles may be added the water area of the strait, with its north- 

 ern and southern embouchures, and the coastwise waters habitually 

 navigated by the Seri balsas as far as Kino bay, making half as much 

 more of water area. Such is the district which the Seri claim and seek 

 to control, and have practically protected against invasion for nearly 

 four centuries of history and for uncounted generations of prehistory. 



Physical Ghabacteeistics 



Seriland forms part of a great natural province lying west of the 

 Sierra Madre of western Mexico and south of an indefinite bound- 

 ary about the latitude of Gila river, which may be designated the 

 Sonorau province; it differs from Powell's province of the Basin ranges 

 in that it opens toward the sea, and also in other respects; and it is 

 allied in many of its characteristics to the arid piedmont zone lying 

 west of the Andes in South America. 



In general configuration the province may be likened to a great roof- 

 slope stretching southwestward from a comb in the Sierra Madre to a 

 broad eaves-trough forming Gulf of California, the slope rising steeper 

 toward the crest and lying flatter toward the coast; but the expanse is 

 warped by minor swells, guttered by waterways, and dormered by out- 



