44 
the basin which once inclosed and held 
a fresh-water sea? It may have been, 
however, that the lake was never so 
deep as the figures thus added would 
indicate, and that instead of a lake or, 
a series of lakes, there existed only a 
lagoon or chain of lagoons, connected 
or disconnected, according to the vol- 
ume of water, which probably varied 
One season as compared with another; 
a system of shallow reservoirs, receiving 
the catchment or surplus water in per- 
iods or seasons of unusual rainfall, 
sometimes, after a prolonged and wide- 
spread storm of great severity, uniting 
and forming an extensive expanse a 
few feet only in depth, as was seen in 
the valleys of California during the 
notable winter of 1861-62. The rate of 
depression may have been such as to 
continue to keep the lagoons supplied, 
* * * and that only within a very re- 
cent period has this depressed por- 
tion of the Colorado basin become bare 
and dry. Are the phenomena which 
this vast and remarkable region exhib- 
its * * * the result of catastrophic ac- 
tion, sudden, violent, and widespread, 
or the result of gradual changes mov- 
ing slowly through countless’ cen- 
turies ?”’ 
At Salton fresh water shells are found 
in countless myriads, with recent spec- 
ies of marine shells, on the surface of 
the plain, 250 feet below sea level. Por- 
tions of the Dry lake are 300 feet below 
sea, level. These minute fresh water 
Shells are drifted into windrows in 
places, where they may be scraped up 
by the quart. 
Along the eastern base of the San 
Jacinto mountains, an old beach line 
is well defined, and can be easily traced 
for miles. The rocks are worn and 
rounded up to this line, sharp and jag- 
ged above. This line by actual meas- 
urement has been found to be even with 
the present leval of the sea. 
Major W. H. Emory, in report of the 
United States and Mexican boundary 
survey, gave the following table of 
distances: 
San Felipe to Vallecito, 17.85 miles. 
Vallecito to Carrizo creek, 16.6 miles. 
Carrizo creek to Big laguna, 26.41 
miles, 
Big laguna to New river, 5.83 miles. 
45 
New river to Little laguna, 4.5 miles. 
Little laguna to Alamo Mocho, 16.44 
‘miles. 
Alamo Mocho to Cook’s well, 21.84 
miles. 
Cook’s well to Fort Yuma, 20 miles. 
Dr. Charles Christopher Parry, bot- 
anist and geologist of the United States 
boundary commission, in reporting a 
reconnoissance made in 1849, wrote, 
concerning this region, as follows: 
“On leaving the last rocky exposures 
to enter on the open desert plain, we 
pass, some distance down the bed of 
Carrizo creek; along the course of 
which are exposed the high bluffs of 
sand, marl and clay, exhibiting a fine 
sectional view of the tertiary formation 
on which the desert plateau is based. 
At the point where the road leaves the 
bed of the creek, to mount to the des- 
ert tableland, some 150 feet above, fos- 
sil marine shells of Ostrea are found, 
and gypsum makes its appearance in 
extensive beds. The uvper layer of 
the tableland shows a variable thick- 
ness, composed of water-worn pebbles, 
derived from the adjoining mountains. 
Near the mountain base, this plateau 
has a height of about 500 feet above 
the level of the Colorado river. The 
surface extends in a gentle slope to- 
wards the Colorado, or eastward, about 
the distance of 25 miles, where it reach- 
es its lowest depression at the lagoon 
or New) river basin, which is in fact a 
part of the extended alluvial tracts be- 
longing to the Colorado river.” 
The New river region receives the 
drainage of a large scope of country, 
which is sometimes visited by heavy 
showers. “It retains this rain-water, 
and river overflows, fdr _ several 
months; when both these sources fail, 
it becomes a perfectly dry bed, or con- 
tracts into quaggy saline marshes’’ 
(Parry). After a heavy rain or over- 
flow there is a rank growth of grass, 
and other vegetation, while consider- 
able portions sustain a heavy growth 
of the mesquite. This affords fine 
grazing for stock, which cattle men 
have not been slow to appropriate. 
Between the peninsula range and the 
Colorado river and the gulf lies a high 
mountain range, to the most northern 
and western point of which has been 
