328 
SCENES IN THE PACIFIC. 
bitter, and fresh water. Most of the lakes, however, belong 
to the latter class ; and the larger part of the soil furnishes 
pasturage. • There are very many swamps or marshes here 
filled with tules, a large rush, ten or twelve feet high, and 
from one to two inches in diameter, having a bulbous and 
branched root, eight or ten inches long, and six or eight in 
diameter. Willows, bushes, and a few shrubs of different 
species, grow over the plains. The cotton-wood is the only 
large tree found in the vicinity of the river. 
The climate of this valley is its greatest misfortune. The 
wet season extends from November to March—five months of 
the year. During this period it rains without cessation for 
many days and even weeks, and the low country being very 
flat, becomes a vast assemblage of lakes. In the month of 
April the dry season begins, and save the heavy dews, there 
is nothing to moisten the earth for seven long, burning months. 
Mr. Kelly, an American gentleman, of great intelligence and 
enterprise, who travelled over this country at an early day, 
remarks, that “ in crossing the prairies in Latitude 38 3 SO', 
N., during the month of August, I found that for several suc¬ 
cessive days the mercury ranged at 110° (Fahrenheit), in the 
shade, and sealing-wax, deposited in one of my boxes, was 
converted into an almost semi-fluid state.” This intense heat 
poured down so many months upon the submerged prairies, 
evaporates the water as the time advances, and converts the 
lakes formed in the wet season into stagnant pools of putrid 
water, which send out most pestilential exhalations, convert¬ 
ing this immense valley into a field of death. 
But this evil can be remedied. The San Joaquim lies so low 
as to allow these lakes to be drained into it. When therefore 
the country shall be properly ditched, the waters will not only 
flow off, but will bear with them much of those destructive 
salts which are now deposited upon the soil. And thus, I be¬ 
lieve, the valley of the San Joaquim will become the abode of 
a dense population, the products of whose industry will float 
