Stewart—Botanical Conditions on the Galapagos Islands . 273 
tation, but there is also no water on the most of them; which 
makes it necessary for one to carry a supply of water with him. 
On this account it is practically impossible to make trips into 
the interior lasting longer than three days. 
Department of Botany, 
University of Wisconsin, 
Madison. 
Abingdon Island. 
With the exception of the two small islands, Culpepper and 
Wenman, Abingdon is the most northern island in the group. It 
is located about thirteen miles northwest of Blindloe, and is the 
smallest one of the islands that supports an extensive mesophy- 
tic flora. This condition is brought about by the fact that it 
reaches an elevation of 1950 ft., and consequently it receives a 
greater amount of moisture than the other small islands. This 
island was visited during the month of September 1906. The 
most of the work was done on the south side where good anchor¬ 
age was found for our vessel in a small bay. 
The shores along the south side of the island are composed of 
low v lava cliffs and occasional sand-beaches. The shores become 
steeper, however, towards the southwest side. On the west side 
there are perpendicular cliffs which rise directly from the sea 
to a height of over 1,000 ft. The north and east sides of the is¬ 
land were not visited, but judging from the appearance of these 
parts as seen from the vessel while sailing in the vicinity of the 
island, the shores are low, and the sides of the mountain are cov¬ 
ered with lava to a considerable elevation. The lava covering 
the south side is mostly basaltic in character with occasional 
beds of volcanic cinders intermingled. This lava is of compara¬ 
tively great age, and it has become stained to a redish-brown col¬ 
or through surface oxidation. There are extensive deposits of 
volcanic cinders on the southeast side of rather recent origin, the 
most of which have come from a small crater at an elevation of 
1,000 ft. There are still slight evidences of volcanic activity 
around the base of this crater, as there is a constant escape of 
steam here, which is sometimes great enough to be seen from the 
shore. There is still another small cinder cone on the recent 
lava near the shore, from which the lava in its immediate vicin¬ 
ity must have come. Remains of several other small craters 
18—S. A. 
