12G 
SERILAND 
figliter, with his good wife Doha Anita. There a small party was 
organized and a little boat was built, and the surveys were jmshed 
into and eventually over the barrier desert and harsh mountains 
of Seriland, both continental and insular. The story of the work 
is not without interest, but must he left for other pages. 
The instrumental outfit comprised a planetable with compass 
and alidade, but no means of h3"psometric determination. The 
planetable triangulation was carried from the international 
boundaiy, and the scale is fixed by the boundary work in con- 
junction with the coastwise positions determined by the United 
States Hydrographic surveys of the Narragamett in 1873-75. 
From Tihuron the surve.v Avas carried eastward beyond Hermo- 
sillo, and from this line the survejmd zone contracts somewhat 
northward to the boundaiy. The area covered is about 10,000 
square miles; 47 stations were occupied for control, and a con- 
siderabl.y larger number of additional jioints for sketching. The 
acconqianying map of Seriland represents only the extreme 
southwestern portion of the area surveyed ; ivithin it 16 stations 
(including the culminating point in Sierra Seri) Avere occupied 
for control as Avell as for sketching. It should be noted that both 
control and sketching are hardly Avhat might be desired on the 
Avestern slojies of Tihuron island. 
The district including Seriland may' be likened unto a great 
roof-slojie stretching from a lofty^ comb in the Sierra Madre to 
and under the gulf of California as into a huge eaves-trough ; 
but the slope is diversified and the eaves-line interrupted b.y 
outlying ranges and buttes. The most aberrant part of roof- 
slojie and eaves-line is Seriland; hirhere the outl.ying ranges are 
of exceptional magnitude and rise even beyond the general 
coastline to form the largest island in the gulf. In general the 
outline of the coast Avould not be greatly changed, but only 
shifted somewhat inland or offAvard, if the sloping plain of Sonora 
Avere to sink or rise a few hundred feet ; but if Seriland Avere 
lifted only a hundred feet its strait Avould be drained and Tiburon 
island Avould join the continent, Avhile if it Avere depressed tAvo 
or three hundred feet the entire province Avould become Iavo 
great islands, and even if Sonora Avere sunk 3,000 feet or more 
Seriland Avould persist as an archipelago far in the offing. Thus 
the land of the Seri stands forth conspicuously on the broad 
continental slope by reason of exceptional altitude. 
Most of the vapor of the Pacific boats over the sun-parched 
plains and loAver mountains along the coast and rolls far up the 
