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Show 338 PERSONAL ADVENTURES. sence of liquid mercury in the deposit, occasioned, no doubt, by the reduction of its ore by heat; which fact alone would point back to a period when this range 'vas undergoing volcanic action." APPENDIX. LOWER CALIFORNIA. The following description of Lower California from the pen of Mr. Farnham, conveys so com~ pletely to the mind the general imp~ession made by Its first aspect on a stranger, and gives, besides, so correct an estimate of its resources and capabilities, that I cannot resist the temptation to transfer it to 1ny pages:- " From the highlands near the mouth of the Rio Colorado, where it forms a junction with the Gulf of California, a wild and somewhat interesting scene opens. In the east appears a line of mountains of a dark hue, stretching clown the coast of the Gulf as far as the eye can reach. These heights are generally destitute of trees; but timber grows in some of the ravines. The general aspect, however, is far from pleasing. There is such a vastness of monotonous desolation; so dry, so blistered with volcanic fires; so forbidding to the wauts of thirsting and hunO'erinO' men; that one gladly turns his eye upon th~ water, the Mar de Cortez, the G.ulf ?f California. The Colorado, two and a half miles In width rushes into this Gulf with great force, lashing as it goes the small islands lying at its mouth, and |