316 
TRAVELS IN THE CALIFORNIA S. 
previous attempts to pass it. And such appeared to be the 
saline character of the soil, and so destitute of moisture was 
the atmosphere, that the flesh of these carcasses, instead of 
being decomposed, was dried like the mummies of Egypt ! 
From this sandy waste to the Californian Mountains, the soil 
is so hard that horses and other animals leave no tracks 
behind them. The waters here also are saline and sulphur¬ 
ous. Indeed, this valley of the Colorado of the West has no 
equal on this continent for barrenness. With the exceptions 
just named, it is a vast plateau of degraded rocks, almost 
destitute of organic matter, with ravines dotted here and there 
with bunches of wild sage, savine bushes, and stunted dwarf 
oaks—a great burial-place of former fertility which can never 
return. In evidence of this opinion, the Doctor mentions some 
ruins which he discovered about four hundred miles up the 
river, and a short distance from its northern bank. They 
occupied an area in the form of a parallelogram, cut by streets 
thirty or forty feet wide, running at right angles to each other. 
The edifices were in a state of great decay. They had been 
built of rough fragments of trap rock, united with a cement 
w r hich had become loose and friable. The blocks of buildings 
were generally crumbled down, so as to lie inclined towards 
the streets on the outside of the walls, at an angle of 30° or 
40° to the horizon, and six feet in height. They w r ere 
sparsely covered with the bushes of the wild sage. The long 
side of the city lay east and west. In this direction it was 
about one mile long. The width, north and south, was three 
quarters of a mile. In the centre of the ruins is a mound of 
fragments with a base of forty, and a height of ten feet. 
This little city was probably overwhelmed by the action 
of those volcanic fires which have melted, shaken, and 
transformed the whole Pacific coast of the continent. That it 
was a place for the habitations of men appears clear. Among 
the ruins the Doctor found fragments of burned clay, vessels 
of a globular form, some of which had a white ground color, 
with raised black images of birds, and of bears birds and 
