ACADEMY OP SCENCES] WHEELER SURVEY 17 



subsequent years, when he was freer to move as he wished, records are fuller. Theoretical in- 

 ferences are rarely found; sketches, profiles, and sections are for the most part incompletely 

 and roughly drawn. The handwriting was rather careful in the first book of 1S71, but became 

 more irregular afterwards; in some of the later books grotesque initial letters are often elabor- 

 ately drawn at the beginning of each day's notes, as if there had been time to spare after break- 

 fast before the party was ready to move. The form of record is simple and direct, often col- 

 loquial, and occasionally facetious. The pages contain a mixture of items about persons and 

 places of temporary value; of more serious but irrelevant matters, such as notes on vegetation 

 and mining, usefid in building a background of experience for the writer even though no later 

 use is made of them; and of geology proper, in the extension and interpretation of which memory 

 must often have been largely resorted to before the recorded observations could be put into 

 form of value to others than the writer. 



The following extract from an entry at a waterless camp in the Mohave desert in August, 

 1871, is altogether exceptional in its fullness and generalized quality, but it is characteristic of 

 Gilbert's even temper; for in spite of many discomforts and of occasional hardships, no word of 

 complaint is anywhere recorded. 



Our dry camp of last night illustrated some phases of human nature, good & bad. There was no con- 

 version of character, but merely a development. Those who customarily exhibited sense remained cool. The 

 feeble-minded were panic stricken. The generous, the selfish, the sanguine, the timid did not change their 

 characters. . . . The greed with which one or two absorbed the public water showed that it would not do 

 to make it common property in case of extremity. The only way to ensure a proper economy & temperance 

 in its use is to have each canteenful private property, & if a larger quantity is transported, to have it issued in 

 rations in some equitable manner. 



A sample of frequent notes on plant forms is as follows, from near Ivanpah, Nevada: 



The novelties in vegetation have been many. It appears that there are two Spanish bayonets, one trunked 

 & branching with seed pods barely as large as a bk. walnut, the other with paler leaves & pendent seed-vessels 

 three or 4 inches long. These, esp. the 1st with the Palmetto make the plain look like an orchard, so thickly 

 are they set. New cacti of 6 kinds. 



Mishaps are often recorded, as on August 27, 1871, in the desert of Nevada: 



Today my mule gave out with hunger & fatigue & I had to walk several miles, but she finally recovered so 

 as to bring me into camp at nine o'clock, which was but an hour later than the rest. 



Frontier conditions during the era when the West was in the dim dawn of the Star of 

 Empire, before the sunlight of civilization had come over from the East, were illustrated by 

 an incident in Arizona, November 7, 1871: 



"In Camp near Prescott. Rumor of the attack on the stage containing H , L , and S — . 



November 8: 



. . . The camp goes on with its regular business notwithstanding the news from Wickenburg. Indeed 

 there is nothing to be done except to write to the friends of the murdered. The at-present accredited version of 

 the affair is: The stage with 7 passengers & 1 driver was attacked 6 m. beyond Wickenburg by white men 10-13 

 in number. The driver did not halt when ordered & the stage was fired into from behind. Several men were 



wounded including the driver & the team became unmanageable [Two passengers] though both wounded 



jumped out and escaped by running ahead. ... At the stage were found the dead bodies of all but H , 



who is not yet accounted for. The murderers took hastily some money & retreated. A large amt. of money 

 was overlooked. Twelve men started from Wickenburgh or Vulture Mill in pursuit and a company of cavalry 

 was afterwards dispatched. Later news leaves no hope for H . 



It is interesting to learn from a passage in Wheeler's narrative that a member of the Mo- 

 have tribe who accompanied the boat party of the survey into the Colorado Canyon, as de- 

 scribed below, aided in discovering the perpetrators of this murderous attack, who were thus 

 found to be not white men but Indians. 



Toward the end of the first season, some experience was had of the forlorn conditions 

 prevalent in certain frontier towns. Four days "were spent in Arizona City in a somewhat 

 monotonous manner. . . . Marvine & I practised a little at billiards. . . . Wrote a column 

 for the Free Press. The Free Press office is about 14 ft. square and includes the bed as well as 

 the table and desk of the editor & all hands. Boxes serve as chairs & bottles as candlesticks. 



