F. GEOGRAPHY. 295 



thoroughly worked up and reported upon, as they soon will be 

 by Professor F. W. Putnam, curator of the Peabody Museum 

 of Archeology of Harvard College, will show much informa- 

 tion of value in determining the antecedents and presumable 

 actual condition of the aboriginal tribes inhabiting this 

 quarter at the time of interment of the individual bodies 

 and specimens, and possibly their connection or want of 

 connection with the present aboriginal races. 



The Colorado Section was composed of three main parties, 

 commanded respectively by Lieutenant W. L. Marshall, 

 Corps of Engineers, Lieutenant W. L. Carpenter, 9th In- 

 fantry, and Lieutenant C. C. Morrison, 6th Cavalry. Their 

 field duties covered parts of Southern and Southwestern 

 Colorado, Central and Western New Mexico, from the Rio 

 Pecos to the western boundary of this territory. The char- 

 acter of the geographical work has been advanced to such 

 a degree that a complete geodetic connection is made to all 

 parts of the area covered, each being taken from the crests 

 of the several conspicuous mountain ranges that exist in 

 this portion of the United States territory; the main tri- 

 angulation being connected with measured and developed 

 bases at the main astronomical points determined by parties 

 of the survey in advance. Professor Jules Marcou, a veteran 

 in geology, was a member of one of the parties of the Cali- 

 fornia Section, and visited fields novel to him in the year 

 1854, when a member of Lieutenant Whipple's Pacific Rail- 

 road Survey party along the thirty-fifth parallel, bringing 

 to his service the accumulated experience of geological in- 

 vestigations made by himself and others extending over an 

 interval of nearly twenty-five years. 



The subjects of Geology, Paleontology, and other branches 

 of Natural History were made part of the season's work, as 

 usual ; and the advance therein, as well as in others, will ap- 

 pear in the regular reports submitted to the government 

 from time to time. Dr. Oscar Loew, a member of the ex- 

 pedition for the third year, was engaged with the party 

 upon the Colorado River in prosecuting, as usual, studies in 

 geology and mineralogy ; and it is hoped that the analyses 

 to be made by him of the waters of the Colorado River, and 

 of various soils and mineral substances, will add no little 

 scope to the results of the season. The usual number of 



