MCOEEl 



SCANT WATERS OF SERILAND 



29 



gruuitic, and hence the supply is not quite permanent.' A practically 

 permanent supply of water is found in one or more pools or barrancas 

 at the head of Playa Noriega in Desierto Encinas. The liquid lies in 

 pools gouged by freshets in the bottoms of arroyos coming in from the 

 northward, just where the flow is checked by the spread of the waters 

 over the always saline playa; and, since they are modified by each 

 freshet, they are sometimes deep, sometimes shallow, sometimes en- 

 tirely sand-filled. When the barrancas are clogged, or when their 

 contents are evaporated, coyotes, deer, horses, and vaqueros obtain 

 water by excavating a few feet in the sand lining the larger arroyos. 

 Commonly the barranca water is too saline for Caucasian palates save 



Fio. 3— Tinaja Anita. 



in dire extremity, but the salinity diminishes as the arroyos are 

 ascended. An apparently |)ermaneiit sup[)ly of saline and nitrous 

 water is found in a lO-foot well, known as I'ozo Bscalante, or Agua 

 Amarilla (yellow water), near the southein extremity of Desierto 

 Encinas, reputed to have been excavated by .Tuan Bautista de Escalante 

 in 1700, and still remaining open; its location is such that it catches 

 the subterranean seepage from both Bacuache and Sonora rivers. The 

 water is potable but not palatable. Among the vaqueros of San 

 Francisco de Costa liica there is a vague and ancient tradition of a 

 carrizal marked tiuaja or arroyo (Aguaje Parilla) at the eastern base 

 of the southern portion of Sierra Seri; and both vaqueros and Indians 



' Tina,ia Trincheca was entirely dry and without trace of carrizal in December, 1894. 



