34 THe West AMERICAN SCIENTIST. 
with an Indian for guide we descended into the famous canyon 
Cantilles, where we found thousands of palm trees and many 
plants of interest. 
In the canyon we met our first Cocopa Indians and partook 
of their mesquite bread. A few further extracts from my diary 
are here given: 
July znassan > * “MNeturn up thercamyonsanmadmeantnare 
near water. Undress and recline on palm leaves with palm 
leaves for a covering; excessively warm; brought no blankets 
with us and need none. | 
“August 1, 1883. * * * Collect Lobelia splendens, flowers 
of Erythea armata, Palmerella debilis, etc. Indians use the 
leaves of Washingtonia filifera for thongs, but apparently not 
those of Erythea armata. Our Indian guide gathered the palm 
seed with poles made by splicing together the flower stalks of 
agaves.”’ 
The spring of 1884 was exceedingly wet, and the roads out 
of San Diego were well nigh impassable in every direction. Not 
until the 30th of June did we again start on an excursion into 
Baja California. We passed over much the same route as the 
year before, but made more exhaustive collections and revisited 
the Cantilles canyon. In September we again traversed the road 
to Hanson’s and returned by San Rafzel and Ensenada, going as 
far south as San Vicente, where poor roads and a scarcity of feed 
compelled our return. In 1885 the last of these excursions 
together was taken. Much of the same ground was gone over, 
but owing to drought the results were meager. 
In the spring of 1888, H. C. Orcutt bought a few acres in 
the Mission Valley, near the ruins of the San Diego mission, and 
returned to a horticultural life, planting fruit trees and experi- 
menting with numberless plants and flowers. Two years later a 
post-office which bears his name was established in the new com- 
munity, and in March, 1890, he received his commission as the 
first postmaster. 
An attack of la grippe in the winter of 1890 resulted in heart 
trouble from which he never fully recovered. On June 30, 1892, 
an accession to the disease was brought on by a sudden cold, 
after which he lived just four weeks, meanwhile consulting four 
physicians and having kept the house scarcely a week. Just 
