SCIENTIFIC SURVEY. 333 



To E. Holmes, M. D., Naturalist to the Scientific Survey: 



Sir : — It gives me pleasure to present, in obedience to instruc- 

 tions received in May of the current year, the following report 

 upon the Physical Geography, Botany and Agricultural capabilities 

 of the valley of the west branch of the Penobscot and the upper 

 main St. John rivers. 



Our party of exploration consisted of the five following persons : 

 Mr. Hitchcock, Geologist ; Mr. White of the Amherst Scientific 

 School ; two guides — James Bowley of Shirley, and George 0. 

 Varney of Greenville — with the present writer acting as Botanist. 

 We arrived, with our canoes and luggage, at the north-west arm 

 of Moosehead lake, upon Monday, the 19th of May. The ice had 

 broken up on the day previous, and we had every prospect of a 

 cold, comfortless tour. To add to the cheerlessness of the first day 

 of our journey, we had a drizzly, penetrating rain, which made 

 the morning quite dark and inauspicious for the commencement of 

 our tour. But these and similar discomforts peculiar to a spring 

 campaign, were more easily endured for two good reasons ; first, 

 we should probably have abundance of water to enable us to 

 examine the smaller streams with care ; secondly, we hoped to 

 have comparative exemption from those torments of summer life 

 in our Maine woods, the Simulium molestum or black-fly, and the 

 Simulium nocivum or midge. 



Our plans for the tour may be stated, briefly, as follows : having 

 ascended the Penobscot west branch as far as the St. John waters, 

 we will pass down the river St. John to Seven isles and carry into 

 the Alleguash. Returning from this point we desire to examine the 

 lakes and mountains immediately west of Chamberlain lake ; sail- 

 ino- down Caucomgomoc stream to Chesuncook, we will ascend the 

 west branch as far as the Rail portage to Moosehead. We were 

 fortunate in being able to accomplish this undertaking in a shorter 

 time than we had allowed for its completion, and in a compara- 

 tively comfortable manner, finishing the tour by our safe return to 

 Moosehead on the '7th of June. ' 



Since our journey began and ended, so far as the exploration of 

 the district is concerned, at Moosehead, it has been thought ad- 

 visable to defer a detailed description of the lake, to the latter 

 paragraphs of this report. The account of our journey will, there- 

 fore, commence with our arrival at the " North-west carry." By 

 this portage, the carrying distance to the Penobscot is one mile and 



