GEOGRAPHY OF NORTH AMERICA. 219 



season of from five and a half to six months' continuous 

 labor. 



A few draughtsmen at the Washington office have been 

 constantly employed in completing* the final maps; and a 

 temporary field-office has been established at Ogden, Utah, 

 where preliminary reductions will be made ; and from this 

 point parties organizing can start in the early spring. Of 

 the total area west of the one hundredth meridian maps are 

 in progress, covering approximately 350,000 square miles, 

 or about one fourth of the entire region. 



In all the divisions of the Department of War we find a 

 system of reports based on the fiscal, and not on the calen- 

 dar year; and as our information, apart from Lieutenant 

 Wheeler's survey, is mainly dependent upon reports pre- 

 pared to cover the year's work from July, 1876, to July, 

 1877, our account of other work by the Engineers must to 

 some degree correspond to the same period. 



In the military department of Dakota, some attention has 

 been given by the chief- engineer to topographical work in 

 the field, and the collection of geographical and geological 

 information: this was particularly the case in the expedition 

 against the hostile Sioux in the summer of 1876. This ex- 

 pedition moved westward from Fort Abraham Lincoln, on 

 the Missouri, to the Yellowstone and Big Horn rivers; and, 

 returning, went to the relief of Major Reno after the discom- 

 fiture of General Custer. 



In the department of the Platte, reconnoissances have been 

 made following half a dozen routes through unoccupied or 

 partially occupied country, principally centring upon Fort 

 Fetterman, Wy., on the north fork of the Platte, and in all 

 ao-oreo-atino* five hundred to six hundred miles. The lono-i- 

 tilde of Fort Fetterman was determined by telegraphic time- 

 signals exchanged with Detroit : and meteorological obser- 

 vations have been taken during several months at Forts Fet- 

 terman and Laramie. 



From the military department of Missouri a survey was 

 undertaken of the sources of the Red River of Texas. The 

 route of the party lay from Fort Elliott, in Northern Texas, 

 directly across the numerous forks of the upper waters of 

 Red River and back again. A stadia-line was run the whole 

 distance the meridian determined, when practicable, at each 



