THE SCIENTIST. 
39 
Kind parent of all creatures and of men- 
There walking and creating he first made 
The turtle. To this island thronging 
down 
Through flood and shoal, all human be- 
ings fled, 
Braving the fishy monsters of the stream, 
By whom some were devoured. With 
her canoe 
The Manito's kind daughter aided all 
Who in successive swarms, approached 
the shore ; 
And Nanabush helped also, parent, friend. 
Of all that live of turtles and of men. 
So thronged they on the Turtle Island 
till 
They seemed to be all turtles. In great 
fear 
They prayed that what was spoiled should 
be restored ; 
And then the deluge vanished and again 
The earth was dry ; the restless waters 
ceased 
Their noisy tumult; and, as peace came 
down, 
Swiftly and far the mighty serpent fled. 
Waruen Watson. 
IVOTES BY THE WAY, IVO. 3. 
To THE Members op the A. op S. 
A few rambling notes on the far-away 
southwest are submitted. 
By the southwest, 1 mean all that por- 
tion of the state of Sonora, Mexico, 
north of the Sierra del Nazareno and all 
of the territory of Arizona. 
Probably no country in the world 
presents so many sharp contrasts in na- 
ture as does the southwest. 
The first impression of this country, 
to most people, is a bad one. Judged 
by the same standards that are applica- 
ble east of the Rocky Mountains, there 
is but little to change from first impres- 
toin. But this country should not be 
judged by the same standards that are 
justly applicable farther east. 
As a general proposition, all of this 
country is a desert- The exceptions are 
a few timber belts in the mountains and 
the small portions of the mesas and 
higher valleys that have been irrigated. 
The exceptions probably do not consti- 
tute one per cent, of the entire area. 
There is very little timber in the 
country. It will be remembered that in 
my notes on Colorado and New Mexico, 
I called attention to the fact that good 
timber is seldom found below 6000 or 
7000 feet above sea-level. The same law 
of timber distribution obtains in the 
southwest. Inasmuch as there are very 
few high mountains, timber is scarce. 
There is much mesquite. paio verde, 
iron-wood, grease-wood, sage-brush and 
other scrubby growth that is suitable 
for fuel, but commercial lumber is limi- 
ted in both quantity and extent. 
One may travel for days in one direc- 
tion and see no other trees so large as 
the giani cactus, called by the natives, 
Sequoyah. This plant, in Arizona and 
Sonora, often attains a height of forty 
feet, and occasionally nearly, or quite, 
doubles these figures. I measured one 
on the first mesa of the Magdalena 
mountains about thirty miles south of 
Nogales, in Sonora, that was 68 feet 
in heigth. I afterwards saw others 
much taller. The diameter of these 
giants is often as much as three feet and 
occasionally as much as four feet. 
Among the many interesting cacti in 
the southwest, the "niggerhead" stands 
well up in the list. This cactus is either 
spherical or cone-shaped. It looks like 
an immense pin cushion. Its height and 
diameter are about equal and are some- 
times as much as five feet. This plant 
has an interior resorvoir in which it 
stores up water. It is claimed by old 
plainsmen that the water stored by these 
