290 _—sCOBB=. Silliman on the Mining Districts of Arizona. 
‘Upper Crossings’ it is seen a few inches deep, flowing with a 
gentle current eastwardly over a pebbly bottom, but disappear- 
ing in a short distance, and never appearing again as a running 
stream. At the Fish Ponds, Camp Cady, and the Caves, the water 
re-appears but only in stignant or torpid pools. The line o 
the river is however perfectly well marked by rounded boulders 
and smooth river shingle, and along its dry banks grow some 
shrubs of which the the so-called willow (a bignoniaceous plant 
with narrow willow-like leaves) is the most conspicuous, an 
more rarely the Mezquit bean of the Mojave Indians (Cereadium 
Floridium). 
The rough road, often very difficult for an ambulance, follows 
the dry bed of this so-called river, the grade being pretty stead- 
ily downward from the ‘Pass’ to Soda Springs, 150 miles or 
thereabouts from the Toll Gate.* At Soda Springs the barome- 
ter stood at 29°355 inches, being the lowest point in the desert of 
the Mojave, and differing, by the mean of my observations, = 
0:195 in. from the level of the Rio Colorado at Fort Mojav 
Soda Springs marks the site of an ancient Jake, the surface of 
the saline plane being as level as the sea. A powerful spring 
of calcareous water breaks out on its western margin, charged 
with sulphate of lime, and bearing, among the ignorant guides 
of these desert regions, the reputation of ‘containing arsenic or 
some other deadly metallic poison. We drank freely of it, how- 
ever, with no ill effects to man or beast, and were very gla to 
obtain so potable a water after several ‘days of great dearth of 
this essential of comfort. 
he term ‘Soda Spring’ is a misnomer, as the water is desti- 
tute both of carbonic acid and alkalinity (it did not affect 
dened ae - — received its name from its bright 
vA gigantic os abounds at Seda: Springs and Marl rao 
us 1n 
‘the sink of the Mojave”—the road, 
ado, rises in 25 miles to ‘* Marl Springs” 
; pioneer the x antukits of civilization has erected ed a toll gate 
m Pass, where he of all in return 
rae 
Wy 
‘ 
