32 BULLETIN 54, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
THE SODA SPRINGS TROUGH. 
South of the Gabbs Valley and west of the Pilot Mountain Range is a short trough, 
now separated by alluvial divides into four small basins—the Acme, Luning, Mina, 
and Rhodes. Each basin contains a small playa, that of Rhodes being very saline, 
though the others are not especially so. The present areas are: Acme 130 square 
miles, Luning 175 square miles, Mina 65 square miles, and Rhodes 210 square miles, 
making a total of 580 square miles. 
It is very difficult to guess the topography of this trough during the Lahontan period. 
Both divides and playas have been raised by post-Lahontan alluvial deposition and it 
may be either that the whole trough once drained into Rhodes or that it all, including 
Rhodes, drained northward into Walker Lake. The writer inclines to the opinion’ . 
that the trough drained partly one way and partly the other, the Acme Basin being 
tributary to Walker Lake and the Luning and Mina Basins to Rhodes. If so, this may 
account for the greater salinity of the Rhodes playa, though the writer has been unable 
to discover any conclusive evidence of the existence of a Quaternary lake in this basin. 
On the assumption stated the Lahontan period drainage area of the Rhodes Basin 
would be 450 square miles. There.is also a bare possibility that the Garfield Flat, 
next to be described, once drained into the Mina Basin and thence to the Rhodes. 
Including this and the Acme Basin, the Rhodes drainage area would be 670 square 
miles, which is a maximum value. 
THE GARFIELD BASIN. 
Just west of the Mina Basin and north of the main ridge of the Excelsior Mountains 
lies a small inclosed valley, the deepest depression of which is the Garfield Flat playa. 
The divide between this basin and the Mina Basin is in one place scarcely 150 feet 
above the playa and it is barely possible that there may once have been an outlet 
over or through this divide. The drainage area of the basin is but 90 square miles and 
this is believed far too small to have attained discharge over a divide of the present 
height, but the divide may formerly have been lower and subsequently raised by the 
deposition of alluvium. The question could probably be settled by careful study 
of the basin, but is unimportant, since the area is too small to give the basin any 
interest. 
THE TEELS BASIN. 
The Teels Basin lies directly south of the Garfield Basin. The lowest pass opens 
into the Rhodes Basin, but is over 800 feet above the floor and apparently never could 
have been a channel of overflow. Neither has the basin ever had any tributaries. 
The only chance of former inflow would be from the Huntoon Basin (described below) 
and the dividing pass is so high as to render this extremely improbable. The area of- 
the basin is 320 square miles. In its deepest depression is the well-known Teels Salt 
Marsh, a playa of high salinity and which has unusual interest for the present inquiry 
because of the reported occurrence of hanksite and other saline minerals associated with 
the potash deposits at Searles Lake, California. 
THE HUNTOON BASIN. 
The Huntoon Basin is another basin quite similar to the Garfield and the Teels and 
_ lying west of the latter. The lowest pass leads into Teels, but since it is over 300 feet 
above the bottom, it is not considered probable that it was ever a line of discharge. 
The deepest depression contains a playa of the usual type, and not especially saline. 
The area of the basin is 115 square miles. 
