1872.] 151 » |Bouvé. 
Rivers. The richness of this flower garden is almost beyond belief 
judged by ordinary standards, or even by that of Florida, the land 
of flowers; for every flower inhabiting Florida, on equal areas more 
than a hundred grow here. The flowers are not in the grasses, as on 
the prairies of Illinois, but the grasses are among the flowers. One 
actually wades in flowers, hundreds touching the feet at every step. 
But all this beauty is fast fading before the plough and the cattle and 
herds of civilization. 
February and March are the spring time of the plain, April the 
summer and May the autumn. Spring opens early, prepared by the 
rains which begin in December; between May and December rains 
are very rare, and this is the winter of the plain, a winter of heat 
and drought. By the middle of May the flowers here are dead, and 
the leaves dry and parched; not slowly perishing, but suddenly dy- 
ing before they can fade, standing erect and undecayed, with their 
beautiful urn-like seed vessels. 
As you ascend from the sunny winter of the plain, you find another 
summer in the foot-hills of the Sierra; higher up another spring, and 
on the edge of the valley a snowy winter; descending into the Yo- 
semite Valley, you find another spring, and then glorious summer 
along the banks of the Merced. Thus, in the space of a week, you 
pass through all the seasons in this remarkable region. 
Dr. Kneeland then called attention to recent newspaper 
statements, that a Japanese junk had reached Alaska in a wa- 
ter-logeed condition, having drifted two thousand five hun- 
dred miles in nine months; of twenty-six persons who had 
started, only three survived the sufferings which were under- 
gone. This,if a fact, is interesting, as showing the possi- 
bility of America having been originally peopled by a similar 
accident. 
The President remarked that several years ago the news- 
papers were filled with statements of Tin mines in Califor- 
nia and Missouri, but that Dr. Jackson had told him that ex- 
amination of the specimens of the supposed tin ore from 
Missouri, showed that no tin was to be found in that State at 
least. Nevertheless, a short time since a paper devoted to 
mining interests has asserted that many promising tin mines 
