144 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Davis made a strong recommendation to Congress in favor of an ex- 

 periment. He went into details about the great extent of newly- 

 acquired territory, its lack of navigable streams and of good roads, and 

 the absence of grass and water for long distances. With horses, mules 

 and oxen long circuitous routes had to be followed; the cost of 

 transportation alone in this region was for one year nearly half a 

 million dollars; and Indians made attacks and escaped because they 

 could not be followed into the deserts and mountains; moreover, the 

 Pacific coast, 120 days distant, was defenseless and for that reason 

 quicker and better transportation must be provided. 



Congress refused to make the desired appropriation and in Decem- 

 ber, 1854, Davis renewed his request for money to make the experi- 

 ment. When the army appropriation bill was reported it carried no 

 appropriation for the purchase of camels, but Senator Shields of Illi- 

 nois and some western representative secured the amount of $30,000 

 for this purpose. The bill became a law on March 3, 1855, and Davis 

 at once proceeded to send for the animals. 



The camels could be procured only from the Levant. The mission 

 to the Orient was first offered to Major Crossman, who nearly twenty 

 years before had first suggested the use of camels. He declined, and 

 Davis sent Major Wayne and Lieutenant David D. Porter of the Navy. 

 Wayne was to go to England and France to secure further information 

 about the camel, and Porter was to take the storeship Supply to the 

 Mediterranean and meet Wajoie at Spezzia. Davis furnished Wayne 

 with a digest of all that was loiown about the camel and his letters of 

 instruction show that the secretary possessed full knowledge of the 

 subject. 



Wayne visited first the Zoological Gardens in England and reported 

 that camels had been reared there under such conditions that he was 

 certain of success in the United States. Next he went to Paris to 

 consult with the French officers who had made use of camels in Algeria.'^ 

 From the information secured he decided that the African camel would 

 not succeed in America as well as the Asiatic. He adopted the follow- 

 ing classification: The Bactrian was the large two-humped animal, the 

 Arabian the one-humped, and the " dromedary " was merely a swift 

 Arabian, not a burden camel. These were points then confused by 

 naturalists. 



Meanwhile Lieutenant Porter had gone ahead and inspected at Pisa 

 the camel herd of the Duke of Tuscany. These were descendants 

 from Egyptian stock and had been used in Italy for two hundred 

 years. There were 250 of them. Porter wrote, and they performed the 

 work of 1,000 horses — some of them carrying as much as 1,200 pounds 

 at a load; but he considered them overworked and badly cared for.^ 



' See Marsh, chap. 17. 

 * See Leonard, p. 13. 



