FIGTREE JOHN TO BOREGO SPRINGS 187 



counted by that horizontal line, still far above my 

 head when I reached the base of the rock, though 

 the ground I had walked over sloped slightly up- 

 ward. It was like a dead-line, warning me that I was 

 out of bounds, and drawing my attention to the 

 fact that the whole bulk of the earth's oceans was 

 dammed up a hundred feet or so overhead, a few 

 miles away. If, I thought. Nature should decide 

 just now to shift things round once more, and should 

 knock a hole in the dam, I wonder what would hap- 

 pen? Something startling, for certain. It would be 

 the Johnstown flood multiplied by billions. 



In climbing among the huge boulders that He 

 tumbled round the foot of this ancient island, I was 

 surprised at the thickness of their coating of traver- 

 tine. In places where it had scaled off I saw blocks of 

 the stuff a foot and a half through. I do not remem- 

 ber any such thickness at the "Coral Reef" or other 

 points where I have found the travertine. Perhaps 

 the exposed position of this rock, which, standing 

 out in the sea-way, must have caught the full wave- 

 wash in times of storm, may account for this exces- 

 sive deposit. 



A little way from the foot, on the northeast face, 

 I found a narrow cave, twenty yards or so from 

 front to rear. Fragments of pottery showed that it 

 had been inhabited, probably as a place of refuge. 

 It can hardly have been used as a regular dwelling, 

 for the floor was very uneven and the sides and roof 

 showed no traces of smoke. The rock has hardly 

 any plant life: only a few scraps of vegetation find 

 foothold where a handful of soil has lodged. About 



