9-] Across the Santa Barbara Chamiel. 
ACROSS THE SANTA BARBARA CHANNEL. 
r\^ our return to the "Angel Dolly" we found that our 
cook had prepared a most delicious dinner on shore. We 
had roast leg of mutton, cooked on a spit, abalones fried and 
stewed, and coffee. The abalones we collected everywhere on 
the shore. The animal was cut out of its shell, pounded until 
tender in an Indian mortar, and then fried in batter. The taste 
of the 
I the open 
doubtful whether we would have eaten the abalones with the 
same zest under any other circumstances. We ate our dinner 
under an overhanging roof of rock in a partially formed cave,, 
the floor of which was the shingle of the beach of the cafion. I 
was reminded of the times when wild men did the same, prob- 
ably in the same cave, as the abundant shell heaps and inscrip- 
tions show that they undoubtedly did. On the roof of the 
cave there was noticed a curious product of the erosion of the 
rock, such as I have never seen before. In the mass of conglom- 
erate there is a pocket of grayish rock projecting from the sur- 
face and worn into cells, the edges of which stand out in sharp 
relief. These cells, not unlike honeycomb in form, are rounded, 
smooth, and several inches in diameter. The edges of the 
cells are sharp and snfcoth. The mode of formation of this 
curious pocket is not clear to me. It is a mass of rock several 
feet in width, and was formed on the roof of the overhanging 
conglomerate under which we ate our dinner. 
In the afternoon we tried collecting on the black reef, which 
partially breaks the sea from Star Caiion on the east. I found 
the sea very high on the reef, but on the lee side a few^ good 
things were found. W^e noticed that the rocks on the seaward 
side were covered with mussels, among which were a few sea- 
urchins and beautiful starfishes. The bottoms of the pools 
>n the reef were covered with Zoophytes which, when fully 
expanded, made them look like flower beds. Among them 
