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Show 210 natural locality, I am not sure. At present it supplies most of the forage used in the immediate country, furnishes the transient custom with feed for the animals, and I am told has beside a remainder for shipment to Bakersfield and Caliente. Thence our road lay past the Castac Lake, ( then a dry alkali- covered basin,) and throngh a valley, becoming each mile more attractive, until we reached old Fort Tejon. It would be difficult to imagine a more fit site for a military post in this region ; in a valley supplying plenty of ground fit for cultivating all the ordinary vegetables needed to maintain the health and promote the comfort of the troops stationed there; with abundance of forage for the animals in the valley and on the hills adjacent to the post; with good, cool, ( 62° Fahrenheit,) clear water bubbling up from several springs at the bases of the hills; with delicious shade from the ample expanse of oak foliage, and above all, in this torrid region, a constant breeze passing to and fro through the funnel- like valley at the hours that otherwise would be most unendurable. I measured one oak tree on the now desolate parade- ground that was probably 60 feet high, and had a diameter of 8 feet 2 inches at 5 feet above the ground, with three branches each as large as a good- Bized tree, carrying the shade out on all sides fnll 40 feet from the trunk. My aneroid barometer read 3,150 feet above the sea. The hillsides around were, besides the oaks already alluded to, covered with a dense growth of scrub- oak, California buckeye, and a hard shrub which, for want of a more intelligible name. I will allude to as Cexoooarpus parvtfolius. These combined form the impenetrable thicket about the post. There had been sheep everywhere to leave behind them a waste almost destitute of grass or any green herb, yet from the dead wild oats on the tops of the hills I could readily see now abundant the pasturage had once been. The water is heavily charged with carbonate of lime, which; for a time induces looseness of the bowels in those using it, but ordinarily in a time becomes as healthy as it is palatable. Where the water percolates through the soil it forms considerable deposits of calcareous tufa. All the cooking- utensils in which this water was boiled speedily became coated with carbonate of lime. From Fort Tejon the natural history party started for Cuddy's ranch, situated about 6 miles east of Mount Pifios, and at an altitude of 5,150 feet above the sea. We found on the way up that the pifion pine began to be common at 4,200 feet above the sea, and extended to nearly or quite 6,000 feet, this being the most characteristic tree at these altitudes. Incidentally I will allude to the fact that while the pifion nuts of New Mexico are round and with an average diameter of three- eighths of an inch, those of California are three- fourths of an inch long and have a diameter of one- fourth of an inch; the leaves and cones, however, of the trees being to ordinary observation much alike. East and west of Mr. Cuddy's are hills the culminating points of which are from 7,500 feet to 8,500 feet above the sea. They are made up of granite and metamorphic rocks to the summit. During the course of ages an immense quantity of detritus has been washed down from the summits, and at an altitude of about 5,000 feet above the sea has accumulated to form the fiats now covered with verdure, and known as ciene-gas or meadows. Looking first at the rough aspect of the surrounding hills and then at these cienegas, the latter are indeed oases. I have already alluded to the fertility of the Gorman ranch. That of Mr. Cuddy though not over 2,000 feet higher, is, from his testimony, utterly unfit to raise any of the cereals except rye, which he says does fairly. He does not grow any of the garden vegetables, and hence depends entirely upon his purchases for his vegetables, the chief interest being stock- raising. He has fine bands of horses and cattle roaming at will over the hills within a dozen miles of his home. On the part of myself and my associates there I wish to make public acknowledgment of all the assistance and kindness we received from that whole- souled gentleman. Just here I will allude to the fact stated by Mr. Robert Prado ( some 20 miles distant from Mr. Cuddy's ranch, and on the extreme headwaters of the Lockwood Creek) that June frosts killed about all the vegetables he attempted to raise. The altitude of his ranch was the same as that of Mr. Cuddy, and also about the same as the Motor ranch, where I saw a very sickly- looking field of wheat that appeared to confirm all I had heard as to the impossibility of raising any cereals amid the mountains at that altitude. July 30.- Ascended Cuddy's Peak, southeast of Cuddy's. It was by the aneroid 7,750 feet high, and covered with a growth of bull and yellow pines to the top, along with which were growing Eriogonum flavum and Artemteia tridentata, which ( the latter) is there the commonest sage- brush. Mount Pifios was found also, by an aneroid reading, to be 6,500 feet above the sea. This is also known as Saw- mill Mountain. The principal timber is bull and yellow pine, which Mr. Magill is now rapidly working up into lumber for the wants of the adjoining region. He sells it at the mills at $ 20 per hundred feet, the yellow pine making by far the better lumber. A thermometer placed in the spring under the saw- mill read 52° F., which maybe taken as not far from the mean temperature of the earth at that point. The valuable timber does not appear to grow at an altitude much lower than 6,000 feet on the side of Mount Pifios. I found a peculiar- looking dwarf- oak 20 feet high at an altitude of 7,000 feet. In addition to |