222 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES [Proc. 4th Ser. 



all dry at the times this island was visited by our party. With 

 the exception of two small springs at Tagus Cove on Albe- 

 marle Island, there are no springs of fresh water on any of the 

 other islands, so far as was observed. On the southeast side 

 of the mountain at Villamil on Albemarle Island, a short dis- 

 tance below the top, there are indeed one or two small lakes, 

 but the inhabitants of the settlement about half way up the side 

 of the mountain, depend entirely on the rain for their water 

 supply. Captain Thomas Levick, an Englishman who has 

 lived on the islands for some thirty-five years, told us that there 

 were small streams in the upper interior region of Indefati- 

 gable Island, as well as a crater lake of considerable size, but 

 we were not fortunate enough to get far enough into the 

 interior of this island to find them. Both Duncan and Hood 

 Islands have broad flat basins in their interiors which appear 

 to have been recently filled with water. 



There is evidently enough precipitation on all of the higher 

 islands to form springs if there were enough soil to hold it. 

 But as the soil usually forms only a comparatively thin layer 

 over the surface, practically all of the water that falls sinks 

 very shortly into the cracks in the lava and comes out at various 

 places along the shore. Some of these springs are large, and 

 their water, as a rule, is quite brackish, owing to the fact that 

 it consists partly of sea water that has percolated through the 

 lava for a considerable distance inland. 



Seasons 



The rainy season, and with it the usual spring vegetation, 

 usually come between January and June, and in 1906 were 

 confined to the first three of these months on most of the 

 islands. There is however no absolute certainty when spring 

 will come, and it sometimes misses a year entirely. The time 

 at which the rainy season arrives in a given year varies con- 

 siderably on different islands. It sometimes commences at 

 different times on adjacent islands, and even two sides of the 

 same island may show a considerable amount of variation in 

 this respect. In 1906 the spring season was at its height at 

 Wreck Bay, on the south side of Chatham Island, in the month 

 of January, while at Sappho Cove, on the north side of this 

 island, it evidently began three weeks to a month later. Some- 



