48 THE JOURNAL OF GEOLOGY. 
rarely, a few bush-like junipers. Their grade profiles are in gen- 
eral the typical products of subaérial degradation, convex upward 
on the divides and elsewhere gently concave. Interrupting these 
simple and familiar slopes there were found a few saucer-shaped 
cavities whose clean, smooth surfaces suggested at once their 
wind-swept character. They are almost wholly devoid of veg- 
etation, and the shale from which they are carved is directly 
exposed without the intervention of residual or overplaced mate- 
rial. Three of them occupy a hillside sloping westward, so that 
the prevalent wind blows up hill. A part of the material exca- 
vated from these is deposited at their upper edges, and in the 
case of the individual most closely examined, has accumulated 
to such depth as to constitute a raised rim, deflecting the gen- 
eral drainage of the slope so that it passes around the hollow. 
The hollow itself is drained through several channels intersecting 
its lower edge. Kain and wind thus seem to be contesting for 
the mastery, and should the wind ever so deepen the saucer that 
it can contain without overflow the rain which falls upon it, a 
permanent lake basin may result. In another instance a small 
saucer is hollowed from an eastward slope, and here a clump of 
junipers standing at the lower edge has, by checking the wind, so 
aided the deposition of the detritus that the rim has been raised 
higher than the interior of the hollow and a temporary pool is 
the result. In yet another instance the hollow is carved ona 
southerly slope, and so deeply that it would pond the rainfall 
were it not tapped by a strong drainage line traversing the gen- 
eral slope at its eastern edge. 
In each case the normal slopes of the country are sharply 
interrupted by the features of the saucer, whose steep sides 
descend quickly to a relatively level bottom. The wind seems 
to have first swept out a few feet of disintegrated and residuary 
material, and then been checked by the firmness of the unweath- 
ered shale in which it can- work no faster than the rock is dis- 
integrated by frost and kindred agencies. 
In four of the five instances the rock attacked is a dark shale 
which is naturally almost sterile, so that vegetation on its surface 
