394 The American Naturalist. [May, 
ready published in the January number of the Annals and 
Magazine of Natural History. This animal has a jointed stem 
and an oval zocecium. When it first came on board I thought 
I had discovered a living Cystoid or Blastoid, as its shape was 
almost the same as that of some genera belonging to these 
types so familiar to .the geologist, but now long extinct. In 
this, however, I was disappointed, although abundantly re- 
warded in finding a new genus of Polyozoa, Astrorhiza. 
The dredge also brought up great masses of a Retepora, 
which is called coral by the sailors in this locality, and are 
sometimes larger than a man's head. Innumerable other lower 
animals people these depths. 
A fair but light wind brought us back to the wharf of Santa 
Barbara early in the evening of the day we left Prisoner's 
Harbor. We heard the sound of the evening bells of the Mission 
Church come down the side of the mesa, and as we threw our 
anchor the bright electric light of the city welcomed us home. 
The next morning a haze covered the base of the island of 
the Holy Cross, out of which rose the peak of Ragged 
Mountain like a monster from the sea. As the day wore on 
the fog lifted, and the soft African haze which gives the great 
charm to Santa Barbara ocean scenery took its place and the 
form of the beautiful island came out in all its extent, its out- 
lines softened by the distance, and its dark canons alternating 
with projecting headlands indistinguishable over the stretch of 
water which separates it from the mainland. The same island 
stands out clear in the beautiful light, unchanged since Cabrillo 
sailed up the channel for the first time fifty years after Colum- 
bus discovered the New World. 
THE VEGETATION OF HOT SPRINGS. 
y HE vegetation of hot waters, though lowly organized and 
composed of obscure forms, is of considerable interest to 
all students of Nature, since the plants occur in very highly 
heated and mineralized waters under conditions that are fatal 
