58 THE WEST AMEKICAN SCIENTIST. 



— a Mexican cow! Briefly, it required the services of a man, a woman and a boy, a 

 rope, a cow, a calf and a corral. The process was repeated twice and the result 

 from the two cows prsented to us in compensation for a Mexican bit. A fresh sup- 

 ply in the morning consamed the day — or rather we consumed the day consuming 

 the leche pura. 



Willows, elders, and other northern s1 rubbery grew along the watercourse in 

 the valley — said to be the last to be found in the peninsula in going south. On the 

 dryer lands in the valley we found various kinds of acacias, one of them, Acacia 

 Farnesiana, emitting a very strong fetid odor upon being cut^ so stro>ng at first as to» 

 be almost unbearable. 



Engaging a boy wit'i a pony, for a guide, at 50 cents a day,, we proceeded 

 toward San Fernando mission on the 3d of May, leaving Rosario valley behind. The 

 country began to show unm stakable desert characteristics. Trees and shrubbery 

 a e not, water has leaked out, and only rattlesnakes and cactus seem to remain^ 

 Four or five unfamiliar species of chollas (opuntias) were found. Echinocactus Em- 

 ory! was measured and found to be eight feet from the base to the summit of the 

 stem. Giant columnar cactuses, Cereus Pringlei, stood out promin ntly on every 

 side, some as much as thirty feet in height, and other cactuses like the cordwood 

 cactus, the cochal, Sohott's cereus, etc., were in abundance. The wild date or 

 * datiles ' a giant yucca some thirty feet in height and two feet or more in diameter 

 near the base of the trunks, here makes its most northern appearance in the penin- 

 sula. Notwithstanding the dry state of everything, some few nice things were 

 found along the bottom of the dry arroyo; most of interest of all was a new species 

 Chitonia simplicifolia, Watson, a small shrub that grew along the sides of the wash. 

 Hyptis Emoryi, a new Euphorbia, various composite plants, verbena ciliata, etc., 

 were the most prominent discoveries. 



This day's journey brought us practically to the head of navigation with a team. 

 Wagons have been a day's journey beyond, but not very recently, and the road was 

 said to be impassable at the time. Scarcity of water and total lack of feed for the 

 horses tur ;ed us northward at the dawn of another day, and reluctantly I b'd good- 

 by to the cereo (Fouquiera gigantea) whose acquaintance I ha I but just made. 

 This curious tree, which we found on this list day's drive southward in the greatest 

 abundance (1 escribed in the West American Scientist, ii, 48), was one of the 

 most characteristic and interesting discoveries made on the whole trip. It forms the 

 fifth well-marked species of an anomalous Mexican genus. 



The last object to be remembered in this interesting region was a tall Echino- 

 cactus or turk's head cactus, standing beneath a large cereo, the entire side covered 

 with the climl ing stems of HarforJia and ornamented freely with the bright and 

 delicately tin'.ed bladder-like fruit, a vision of beauty in the desert not soon to be 

 forgotten. 0. E. ORCUTT. 



The attention of medical men ii France has been directed to a new sleep-pro- 

 ducing drug called hypnone, a distilled mixture of acetate of lime with benzoate of 

 lime. It is claimed that the new drug produces none of the unpleasant after symp- 

 toms of o ium. 



