. Peninsular California; some account of the climate, soil productions, and present condition chiefly of the northern half of Lower California. ally other portions of the southern half of the Peninsulathere are, again, broad plains having a fertile soil, and asEoss Browne, its only careful explorer, reported, waterattainable by digging wells. But most of these southernplains, which are below the limits of the InternationalCompany, he in the rainless zone. The water whichRoss Browne found everywhere, even in this arid region,underlying the soil is of course the drainage of themountain
. Peninsular California; some account of the climate, soil productions, and present condition chiefly of the northern half of Lower California. ally other portions of the southern half of the Peninsulathere are, again, broad plains having a fertile soil, and asEoss Browne, its only careful explorer, reported, waterattainable by digging wells. But most of these southernplains, which are below the limits of the InternationalCompany, he in the rainless zone. The water whichRoss Browne found everywhere, even in this arid region,underlying the soil is of course the drainage of themountain range which runs the whole length of thePeninsula. The various attempts at colonization have been, withone or two exceptions, made in the southern half of thePeninsula, and their failure naturally gave the whole ofLower California a bad name. But even these attemptsfailed mainly because they were, in every case so far asI know, mere speculative adventures, carried on withoutinteUigence and with no purpose to establish agriculture,but either as mere mining enterprises or with the de-sign to unload on settlers as quickly as possible. Ross. WHY THE PENINSULA AVAS REPUTED A DESERT. 25 Browne, who traversed the whole Peninsula from CapeSt. Lucas to the United States boundary, in 1867, in theemploy of the Lower California Company, one of thesecolonisation schemes, gives a vivid description of such aspeculative settlement which he saw in that year: We struck inland a mile or two below Santa Ma-ria. Approaching the place, our eyes were gladdenedby the sight of two or three very American - lookingboard houses and a well-cleared piece of road, broad andsmooth as a race-track. What was our surprise, on rid-ing up to the house, to find a couple of sign-boards onone corner, one bearing the inscription Hyde Street, theother Barry Street! Without knowing it, we had stum-bled on an embryo American town. We were met atthe door by an elderly man, whose name we afterwardslearned was Porter. He w
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