46 BULLETIN UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 



the grave of Cabrillo, but in vain did we try to enable the Spanish nation 

 to erect for him a monument in commemoration of his noble deeds. 



I left Santa Cruz Island on June 12 for Santa Barbara, where I met Dr. 

 H. 0. Yarrow, in charge of Lieutenant "V\;heeler's scientific corps, making 

 researches on the mainland for Indian remains. I joined him for a day- 

 while working at Galeta, and found this place yielding large quantities 

 of all kinds of implements. 



In the mean time, the schooner Star of Freedom, which I had chartered, 

 arrived with a party on board to convey us to San Nicolas Island (Maps 

 9 and 10) [Plate 16]. We reached this island at night-fall on June 19, 

 with the wind blowing lively, which compelled us to anchor at the south- 

 east end of the island. We expected a campaign worse, if possible, than 

 that at San Miguel, as the island appeared to be a faint lump in a thick fog- 

 like cloud of sand, which was whirled densely over our neat craft, although 

 we were a half mile off shore. On the low sandy flat, not far off, the 

 breakers for a distance of half a mile rise to a great height, and cause a 

 roaring like thunder; at intervals, when the burst had passed away and 

 the infuriated wind slackened in the rigging, we heard the howling sea- 

 lions in the kelpy waters, if not at their rookery on the near shore, all 

 of which failed not to impress with its wild charms. In the morning we 

 made our landing, though the sea was rough, and as the swells, caused 

 by a strong current that passes, sweep the shore at an angle, care had 

 to be taken to prevent the boat going broadside on, which would have 

 been sure to capsize her. 



The island, a Government possession, is a mass of soft, coarse, yel- 

 lowish-gray sandstone, about 600 feet in height; its length is con- 

 sidered 7 miles, and its width 3 miles. The plateau, which seems 

 almost level, falls off on both sides in steep gulches and ravines, where 

 the eye is met by innumerable cave-like outcarvings done by the 

 grinding sand. The northwest end is sandy; dunes stretch across the 

 island as far as the depression, on the end of which the aclohe house is 

 located. The vegetation is like that of San Miguel, and also ruined by 

 overstocking it with sheep, which are here found in a like starving con- 

 dition. Near the house on the northeast side we found some malva- 

 bushes cleared of their foliage to the reach of a sheep, which gave them" 

 the appearance of scrub oak trees when seen from a distance. There 

 are few trees near the house, where a strong never -failing spring sup- 

 plies the necessary water, which has, as on San Miguel, a mawkish 

 alkali taste. The shifting sand has almost buried the house erected by 

 the stock-raising company, and with it its old and only inmate, the 

 superintendent. Farther on to the northwest, at the so-called Chinese 

 Harbor, is another spring, with good water. It was on the northwest 

 end, on the dunes, that we found the shell-mounds abundant, although 

 some are found at intervals all along the shore toward the sandy flat on 

 the southeast end, beyond which but few small ones exist. None exist 

 on the southwestern shore ; but they appear again at the northwest end 



