me-was put into my hands for perusal. It embraced, among other things, three very important points, namely:

That Mr. Bartlett had discovered that his surveying corps was composed of a large number of young gentlemen who were unqualified for the duties they were required to perform, and that, while the Mexican commissioner was aided by several officers of the Mexican engineer corps, the American commission had the services of but one engineer officer, namely, Lieutenant Whipple, who appeared to be the only one competent to co-operate with them, or words to that effect. That he (Mr. Bartlett) was at El Paso almost destitute of proper surveying instruments. That he had sent Mr. Sanford to New Orleans to aid in the purchase of provisions, with instructions, when that was done, to go to New York and purchase a set of surveying instruments for the American commission.

The same letter intimated some dissatisfaction with his quartermaster, and at the same time stated that it was Mr. Commissioner Bartlett's original wish that the said post should have been filled by an officer of

the army.

Uneasiness was expressed at the Department of the Interior in regard to the expenditures, and I was asked by the chief clerk if I thought I could obtain the detail of an army officer, to take the charge of that department; at the same time adding, that if I could, the control of its expenditures would be put under my direction, if I would undertake it. I expressed my readiness to undertake the duty, if the department wished it.

I expressed the belief, that if the quartermaster was taken from the army, it would be better that the commissary should be also.

I was answered by the chief clerk, that if I could obtain the detail of two army officers, both posts would be thus filled and placed under my direction, provided I would undertake the responsibility of keeping the expenditures within the amount appropriated for this work. Accordingly, the plan set forth in my letter of the 6th of March, 1851,* was submitted to the Department of the Interior. It was approved, and was made the basis of an application to the War Department for the two army officers to fill the posts suggested in that letter.

The War Department answered the call favorably, and Commismissioner Bartlett was instructed by the Department of the Interior, under date, I think, of March 11, 1851, forthwith to discharge the quartermaster and commissary then in service; and was informed that the army officers detailed for those posts would report to me, and that I would be held responsible to him for those departments.

The General-in-chief had, in a personal interview on the subject, informed me that the selections must be so made as not to leave any one company with less than two officers for actual duty with it, and that no officer of the general or regimental staff could be detailed, nor could any officer be taken from a horse artillery company.

These restrictions, which were deemed necessary to protect the discipline and interests of the regimental service, very much diminished the number of officers, within convenient reach, from which the detail

* See Appendix, No. 51.

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could be made. It was, moreover, stated, as a condition, that I must go into the Adjutant General's office, and, with the aid of one of the assistants, ascertain the names of such as would fall under the rule prescribed, without interrupting the Adjutant General, who was too much occupied with matters concerning the military service to allow of his being interrupted.

Whilst I was thus engaged, and in writing to such as were found to fall within the rule to know if they would accept the situations, 1 occasionally called at the Department of the Interior and made known the manner in which I was employed. During one of these visits two letters were put into my hands by the chief clerk of the Department of the Interior, stating that he did so by request of the Secretary, who wished me to peruse them and then come to him and give him my views in regard to the matter they contained.

One of these letters was from Commissioner Bartlett to a gentleman then in this city, written at El Paso in December, 1850, in which Mr. Bartlett entered into a pretty full detail of the manner in which his settlement of the initial point on the Rio Grande with General Condé, the Mexican commissioner, had been arrived at. This amounted to a negotiation between the parties, in which it appeared that Mr. Bartlett claimed to have gained in longitude upon the extent of the southern boundary of New Mexico, westward from the Rio Grande, in consideration of his having yielded latitude in fixing upon the point where that boundary should depart from the said river. The extent of longitude agreed upon was three degrees, and the latitude 32° 22'.

The other letter alluded to was addressed to the President by the gentleman who had received the letter from Mr. Bartlett, which he at the same time enclosed to the President, and made it the basis of a complaint against Mr. Bartlett's line.

These letters were, by the President's endorsement, referred to the Department of the Interior, and were thus committed to the official custody of that department.

After finishing the perusal of these letters, I was admitted into the room of the Secretary of the Interior, to whom I gave it as my opinion that the line which Mr. Bartlett proposed to adopt for the southern boundary of New Mexico was not the line laid down as such on the treaty map. That instead of running the line in accordance with its relative position to the town of Paso, as these were laid down upon the map, and referred to in the treaty, the commissioners of the two governments had undertaken to interpolate upon the 5th article of the treaty by negotiating a new line, taking as their guide the imaginary lines of latitude and longitude as laid down on the map. That these imaginary lines were not referred to in the treaty, but that the town of Paso was referred to; and I gave it as my opinion that there ought to have been no difficulty whatever in finding the proper point on the Rio Grande. That all negotiation upon the subject had been accomplished by the parties to the treaty, and that the powers of the joint commission under the 5th article were, of necessity, limited to the mere running and marking the lines therein defined.

In one of Mr. Bartlett's letters, which I read in the department, there was an expression that he was bound to go by Disturnell's map,

right or wrong, or words to that effect. I observed to the honorab e Secretary, that if by the term "latitude 32° 22′, as laid down on Disturnell's map," was meant the point de facto on the Rio Grande which would be intersected by latitude 32° 22' on Disturnell's map, it would be the same thing as to refer to the position of the town of El Paso, by the scale of the map; but that if it was meant that the point in 32° 22′ was to be derived from actual observation, I would not put my instrument up at that point, because it would not be in accordance with the treaty. That the parallels of latitude and meridians, drawn upon that part of Disturnell's map which embraced Western Texas and New Mexico, had evidently not been derived from observation, because they were very eroneous. I requested the honorable Secretary to allow me to bring to him from the Topographical Bureau the manuscript map of Col. J. E. Johnston, of the topographical engineer corps, upon which was laid down, from actual surveys and astronomical observations made by that officer in the year 1849, a large portion of the Rio Grande and the adjacent country, extending from Presidio del Norte to some distance above Doña Ana, in order that he might see, upon a map having the parallels of latitude and the meridians of longitude correctly laid down, what would be the effect of beginning the southern boundary of New Mexico at latitude 32° 22' upon the Rio Grande, derived from observation.

This was on the morning of the 19th of March, 1851. The Secretary replied that his engagements would not allow of his looking at the map that day, but he appointed the next morning, at half-past nine o'clock, I think, to do so, at which time I was at the department with the map. I was told when I arrived that the Secretary was engaged, and I went into the chief clerk's room to wait until the Secretary could see me. I made frequent applications to know if I could be admitted; I was as frequently denied, until, about eleven or twelve o'clock, I was told that the Secretary had gone to cabinet meeting, and could not see me. I asked an opportunity to make the explanations to the chief clerk for the information of the Secretary; but he declined, saying he had an engagement away from the office that morning. I felt that it was a matter of the utmost importance that there should be a full understanding between the honorable the Secretary of the Interior and myself in regard to this important question before I should leave Washington, and I requested his secretary, Mr. Briscoe G. Baldwin, to permit me to make the explanations to him, in order that, through him, they might be conveyed to the Secretary of the Interior in case I should fail to see him. This was assented to by Mr. Baldwin, and we retired to his room with the manuscript map.

In a short time, aided by this map, Mr. Baldwin became, as I understood from him, perfectly satisfied with the correctness of my views, and said it seemed to him very desirable that the Secretary of the Interior should have an opportunity of receiving the same explanations. I accordingly stated that I would call at the department again, early the following morning, with that object, and I took my leave, leaving the map at the Department of the Interior.

On the evening of this day, the 20th of March, I received an intimation which I regarded as equivalent to an order that I should leave

Washington on the following morning. I had no alternative but to obey, and 1 accordingly did so, believing that I would be sustained in the views I had so clearly expressed in regard to this line.

I was very desirous that the officers designed to take charge of the quartermaster's and commissariat departments of the scientific corps should accompany me, but they had not yet been detailed. Their services would have been a great aid to me in the transportation to San Antonio of the equipment I had prepared.

I proceeded, not by way of New York, as the Secretary of the Interior states in his letter to the Secretary of War, of the 11th of September, 1851, but by way of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans, and thence by way of Indianola and San Antonio to El Paso, where, on the 24th of June, 1851, I arrived with the advance of that very escort and wagon train which Mr. Gray was instructed by the Department of the Interior, under date of October 23, 1850, (the day that I also received my instructions from that department) would be the first to leave San Antonio for that place.

Not only did I accomplish this, but I carried with me and delivered in perfect safety, without even the breaking of a thermometer, that valuable and complete equipment of surveying and other apparatus which, by my almost unaided perseverance, continued day and night, I had prepared, and without which the surveying corps of the American commission would have remained for many months to come paralyzed and steeped in idleness, just as it had been, with the exception of a single working party, for eight months before I relieved it from this unfortunate dilemma.

I presume I need not enter into any detail, other than is contained in the correspondence, of occurrences between my leaving Washington and my arrival at El Paso, further than to state that while at San Antonio, where for the first time I met Mr. William T. Smith, about the 12th of May, 1851, he exhibited to me the contract (hereto attached, marked No. 79) between the former commissary of the boundary commission and J. Maria Ponce de Leon, of El Paso, whose agent Mr. Smith was, for the transportation of provisions, &c., and informed me that he was directed by that commissary to take up some barrels of whiskey at Fort Inge, on Leona river, and carry them forward to El Paso. This I prohibited, as I conceived I had a right to do from my understanding of the responsibilities which were expected of me. I had heard, on my arrival at San Antonio, of some most unfortunate occurrences in the commission, while on the march to El Paso the year previous, and after its arrival there, which there appeared but too much reason to attribute to the influence of the ardent spirits transported in the public train and daily issued. It was for this reason that, in my order of the 12th of May, marked No. 4*, I felt myself called upon to exclude that article altogether from the subsistence stores, and to prohibit its future purchase or transportation among the commissary's stores of the commission. The circumstances attending my march from San Antonio to El Paso, and the date of my arrival there, were made known to you by my report to you, dated June 30, 1851. They were mentioned, to

* See Appendix No. 66-Doc. H, thereto attached.

gether with other matters connected with the commission, in somewhat more minute detail, in my report to the Department of the Interior of the following day, a copy of which is appended, marked No. 78.

In that report I stated that I had despatched, on the 26th of June, an express to Mr. Commissioner Bartlett, then at the Copper Mines, (of Santa Rita, in New Mexico,) informing him that, understanding he was expected at El Paso in a few days, I would await his arrival there, and that, on the return of my express, if informed that Mr. Bartlett did not design coming, I should proceed to join him.

By this express, my letter to Mr. Bartlett, of June 26, (see No. 71,) reached him at the Copper Mines on the 29th.

He did not answer me by express, as he was bound, I conceive, to do, out of regard to the public interests; but waited to do so until a wagon train was coming down for provisions, under charge of the late quartermaster, Mr. Myer, by whose hands I received that answer, (hereto attached, marked No. 72,) on the evening of the 8th of July,

near sunset.

By the same express, my letters to Lieutenant Whipple, of June 26, (see Nos. 73 and 74.) reached him at his station on the river Mimbres on the evening of the 28th, this point being upon the route. On the return of the express to Frontera, which was on the 3d of July, I received answers from Lieutenant Whipple, dated June 29, copies of which are appended, marked 75 and 76.

By this correspondence it will be seen that the American and the Mexican commissioners both knew full well that I had ordered Lieutenant Whipple in, and of his intention to obey the order. I cannot reconcile this with what is contained in Mr. Bartlett's letter, of July 11, to the Mexican commissioner, on this subject. Had Mr. Bartlett answered my letter of the 26th of June by express, I should have received it by the 3d or 4th of July, and should have proceeded on horseback with a small party to join him at the Copper Mines. But, even in that case, it would have been necessary for me to return to Frontera before I could have entered with him on the duty of reorganizing the scientific corps, because all the note-books containing the surveys that had been made before my arrival were deposited there,* and much of this work had never been plotted—a thing which was still to be done, to enable me, by comparing the work of the different individuals, to select, in the great reduction which had to be made, those possessing the best qualifications. For me to have entered blindly

*I allude here to the surveys of the route travelled by the commission from Indianola to San Elizario, (the old fort or presidio of the Paso del Norte.) Upon that march Lieutenant Whipple undertook, under the orders of Colonel McClellan, to survey the route. Lieutenant Whipple's plan for correcting the run of that rapid work, by frequent astronomical observations, made by himself, for latitude and longitude, was similar to that which had been pursued in the surveys of our northeastern boundary; and his results were very satisfactory. A portion only of this survey had been plotted when I reached El Paso, there being some difficulty attending the plotting of other portions.

Upon this reconnaissance or rapid survey, Lieutenant Whipple had, in addition to his astronomical labors, and his personal supervision of the surveying parties, obtained a magnetic profile, by his own observations, of the variation, dip, and intensity of the needle, extending about eight hundred miles, from Indianola to El Paso. This profile was afterwards extended by that talented and enterprising officer entirely across the American continent, terminating at San Diego, as will appear by his report to me, dated at San Diego, California, January 10, 1352. (See Appendix, No. 171.) J. D. G.