can venture upon this sea and live, and the sad fates of Costigan and Molyneux are repeatedly cited to deter such attempts. The first one spent a few days, the last about twenty hours, and returned to the place from whence he had embarked without landing on its shores. One was found dying upon the shore; the other expired, immediately after his return, of fever contracted upon its waters.

The northern shore is an extensive mud flat, with a sandy plain beyond, the very type of desolation; branches and trunks of trees lay scattered in every directionsome charred and blackened as by fire, others white with an incrustation of salt. The north-western shore is an unmixed bed of gravel, coming in a gradual slope from the mountains to the sea. The eastern coast is a rugged line of mountains, bare of all vegetation-a continuation of the Hauran range, coming from the north, and extending south beyond the scope of vision, throwing out three marked and seemingly equi-distant promontories from its south-eastern extremities.

Lieutenant Lynch fully sounded the sea, determined its geographical position, took

and deepest one, in a line corresponding with the bed of the Jordan, is a ravine, which also seems to correspond with the Wady el-Jeib, or ravine within a ravine, at the south end of the sea.

At one time, the sea was observed to assume an aspect peculiarly somber. Unstirred by the wind, it lay smooth and unruffled as an inland lake. The great evaporation inclosed it in a thin transparent vapor, its purple tinge contrasting strongly with the extraordinary color of the sea beneath, and, where they blended in the distance, giving it the appearance of smoke from burning sulphur. It seemed a vast caldron of metal, fused but motionless. The surface of the sea was one wide sheet of phosphorescent foam, and the waves, as they broke upon the shore, threw a sepulchral light upon the dead bushes and scattered fragments of rocks. The exhalations and saline deposits are as unfriendly to vegetable life as the waters are to animal existence; that fruit can be brought to perfection there, may therefore well be considered improbable.

The celebrated "Apples of Sodom," so often spoken of by ancient and modern

writers, are peculiar to this locality. The plant is a perennial, specimens of which have been found from ten to fifteen feet high, and seven or eight feet in girth. It❘ has a gray, cork-like bark, with long and oval leaves. The fruit resembles a large smooth apple or orange, and when ripe is of a yellow color. It is fair to the eye, and soft to the touch, but when pressed, it explodes with a puff, leaving in the hand only the shreds of the rind and a few fibers. It is, indeed, chiefly filled with air like a bladder, which gives it the round form, while in the center is a pod containing a quantity of fine silk with seeds. When green, the fruit, like the leaves and the bark, affords, when cut or broken, a thickish, white milky fluid. This plant, however, which from being in Palestine found only on the shores of the Dead Sea, was locally regarded as being the special and characteristic product of that lake, is produced also in Nubia, Arabia, and Persia. Thus, this assumed mystery of the 'Sea of Death' is a simple phenomenon of nature, easily explained; as is also that of the alleged fire and smoke of the lake, being, as already described, simply mist and phosphorescence.

In regard to the pillar of salt into which Lot's wife was turned,-one of the most remarkable facts recorded in holy writ,and the continued existence of which has always been asserted by the natives, as well as by many travelers, Lieutenant Lynch asserts that a pillar is there to be seen; the same, without doubt, to which the reports of the natives and of travelers refer. But that this pillar, or any like it. is or was that into which Lot's wife was transformed, cannot, of course, be demonstrated.

It is a lofty, round pillar, standing apparently detached from the general mass,

at the head of a deep, narrow, and abrupt chasm. Immediately pulling in for the shore, the lieutenant in company with Dr. Anderson, went up and examined it. The beach was a soft, slimy mud, encrusted with salt, and a short distance from the water, covered with saline fragments, and flakes of bitumen. They found the pillar to be of solid salt, capped with carbonate of lime, cylindrical in front and pyramidal behind. The upper or rounded part is about forty feet high, resting on a kind of oval pedestal, from forty to sixty feet above the level of the sea. It slightly decreases in size upwards, crumbles at the top, and is one entire mass of crystallization. A prop or buttress connects it with the mountain behind, and the whole is covered with debris of a light stone color. Its peculiar shape is attributable to the action of the winter rains. Lieutenant Lynch gives no credit to the representations that connect this pillar or column with Lot's wife. And this is true of most travelers who have visited the spot, though Montague gives it, as his opinion, that Lot's wife having lingered behind, she, while so lingering, became overwhelmed in the descending fluid, and formed the model or foundation for this extraordinary column; a lasting memorial of God's punishing a most deliberate act of disobedience.

After an absence of a little more than a year, Lieutenant Lynch returned, with his companions, to the United States, the expedition having been highly successful in accomplishing the purpose for which it was planned; comparing most favorably in this respect with the results of explora tions made by other parties, and receiving the highest encomiums of English reviewers, some of whose comments, throwing additional light on various points involved in the subject, are here presented.

evidence of this appears in a letter addressed by Abel Stearns, of Los Angeles, to Louis R. Lull, secretary of the California Society of Pioneers. Mr. Stearns, who went to California from Mexico in 1829, states that on the 22d of November, 1842, he sent by Alfred Robinson-who returned from California to the states by way of Mexico-twenty ounces California weight, or eighteen and three-fourths ounces mint weight, of placer gold, to be forwarded by him to the United States mint at Philadelphia; the mint assay was returned August 6, 1843. This gold was taken from placers first discovered in March, 1842, by Francisco Lopez, a Californian, at San Francisquito, about thirty-five miles north-west from Los Angeles. It appears that Lopez, while resting in the shade with some companions, during a hunt for stray horses, dug up some wild onions with his sheath knife, and in the dirt discovered a piece of gold. Searching further, he found more pieces, and on returning to town an-. nounced his discovery. A few persons, A few persons, mostly Sonorians, who were accustomed to placer mining in Mexico, worked in the San Francisquito placer from this time. until the latter part of 1846 (when the war with the United States disturbed the country), taking out some six thousand to eight thousand dollars in value, per annum. The United States mint certificate for the assay made for Mr. Stearns in 1843, is now in the archives of the "Society of California Pioneers."

Before the great event which made the year 1848 so memorable, the influence of the United States had already become conspicuous in the affairs of California, and had in a degree prepared the way for what was to follow. In the words of a British writer, the United States spread her actual influence long before she planted a flag as the sign of her dominion. For two years previous to the capture of Monterey, in 1846, her authority had been paramount in California. At length, toward the close of the summer of 1845, Fremont appeared in the neighborhood of Monterey, whose parklike scenery-trees scattered in groups

over grassy hills, wide sloping fields, plantations of oak and fir, red-tiled houses, yellow-washed church, and white cottages -showed in pleasant contrast to the desolate region of the Rocky mountains he had left. He was accompanied by some of his trappers men of muscle and daring, dressed in deer-skin coats, with formidable rifles, and mounted on tall, spare horses. They rode in Indian file through the outskirts; their leader viewed the town, and they vanished. Soon again he appeared, with an ominous array of thirty-five followers, encamped on a woody height; was commanded to depart, was driven to the hills, pursued, and again lost sight of. An American ship then sailed into the harbor. Fremont was again at Monterey. The Californians foresaw the probable progress of events, and perhaps secretly desired the fostering protection of the great republic. While balancing between that and independence, two United States vessels simultaneously entered the harbors of Monterey and San Francisco, and in July, 1846, the whole of California came under the rule of America. A new era was again opened. An immediate change appeared. Industry was revived; deserted villages were repeopled; neglected lands were again cultivated; decaying towns were renovated; and the busy hum of toil broke that silence and lethargy which brooded over an ill-governed country.

But another and greater change was at hand, to turn the tide of her fortunes into a new, a wider, and more diffusive channel, and to raise California from the condition of a wild and isolated territory, to be the very focus of the world's attention,-the spot where innumerable streams of emigration from the four quarters of the world, from barbarous and civilized countries, pouring across the Rocky Mountains, or brought over the sea, from distant shores, were to meet in tumultuous confluence, and, flowing upon each other, form an eddying whirlpool of excitement, such as few countries on the globe, in any period of their history, could present to the observation of mankind.

What is the character of this region, independently of its newly discovered treasures, at the period mentioned? It is wealthy in many natural resources. Its extent is great. From Cape Mendocino, at the borders of the United States, to the root of the peninsula, is seven hundred miles, and Lower California thrusts out its vast tongue to an almost equal distance. The old region is for the most part a broken, hilly, and barren tract of land; but occasional plains of rich fertility alternate with the less favored tracts, and these formed the sites of the old Jesuit missions. Alta California extends from the coast to the provinces of New Mexico. Of the interior desert basin, little is known, except that it is a wild, rocky, and woody territory, watered by a few rivers, and lakes, rising periodically from the earth, and peopled by wandering Indian hordes. The Sierra Nevada, or snowy range, divides the gold region from the great desert basin; and 'between this and the sea lies another line of mountains, forming a valley five hundred miles in length, watered by the Sacramento and the San Joachim. These streams, forming a junction in the center of the valley, diverge toward the sea, and pour in an united current into the harbor of San Francisco -one of the noblest on the globe. The aspect of the country is diversified, and full of beauty. Green valleys, glittering lakes, and verdant hills, extend along the interior borders, backed by the rounded spires of the snowy range, whose deep ravines and caverns are just now peopled by

toiling gold-hunters; and these are drawing more wealth from the bleakest, most barren, and most neglected spots, than a husbandman in the course of many years could derive from the most luxuriantly cultivated land. Along the river banks, light grassy slopes alternate with stony, broken, sandy expanses, honey-combed as it were by time, but now swarming with amateur delvers. However, the country, as a whole, is fertile; producing readily grains, vegetables, and fruits, with fine timber, whilst immense pasture grounds afford nourishment to the flocks and herds that once formed the principal wealth of California.

Up to the year 1847, so comparatively small were the gatherings of gold, in various sections of the globe, that in