336 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol. los 



At the end of this second overland journey, Gambel died of typhoid 

 fever in December 1849 in the northern Sierra Nevadas of California 

 and was buried at Roses Bar above the Feather River. His grave was 

 subsequently destroyed by placer minere. There were friends in Cali- 

 fornia aware of Gambel's death. D. B. Woods of Mountain House 

 wrote an obituar}^ of Gambel which later appeared in a Philadelphia 

 newspaper. Also, on this trip Gambel had apparently been accom- 

 panied by a man named Beesley from the Philadelphia area who 

 returned to the East early in March of 1851 (Osborn, 1931, p. 259; 

 letter, John Cassin to Baird, March 12, 1851, ". . . . Beesley who 

 accompanied poor Gambel has returned within a day or two ..."). 



Gambel, on this second trip, bad made a journal which was returned 

 to his wife after his death, most probably by Beesley. Later the 

 journal was turned over to the Academy of Natural Sciences and 

 subsequently lost. There is no evidence, however, that anything 

 beyond this journal was returned from the yoimg naturalist's be- 

 longings. Nonscientific friends on the scene of Gambel's death would 

 be most unlikely to take sufficient interest and effort to send or bring 

 back from far away California any specimens, especially alcoholics, 

 either by the torturous overland route or around Cape Horn by ship. 

 Also, little among the kno\NTi accessions of Gambel suggests a collec- 

 tion point close to the more northerly route which apparently was 

 followed in 1849. Therefore, the designation "second journey to 

 California" seems invalid as a time and locality for any of Gambel's 

 collecting, particularly lierpetological collecting. 



The route of Gambel's first trip west, to Santa Fe and eventually 

 to southern California, has been outlined by several authors but is 

 herein changed somewhat to conform with newly discovered evidence. 

 Gambel left Independence for Santa Fe with a party of 80 men, mostly 

 merchants and their merchandise-loaded wagons, between May 8 and 

 May 10, 1841. This yearly caravan to Santa Fe followed the Santa 

 Fe Trail on to the Arkansas River in Kansas. It now appears evident 

 that this particular caravan did not proceed to Fort Bent near the 

 Colorado Rockies and then south over Raton Pass. Instead, it look 

 the Cimmaron Cut-Oft', leaving the Arkansas River in western Kansas, 

 cutting across the panhandle of Oklahoma into northeastern New 

 Mexico, probably encountering the mountams proper near Wagon 

 Mound, passing on to Las Vegas and thence to Santa Fe. 



The basis for suggesting this change in route is a letter which was 

 published in Niles' National Register (vol. 61, p. 1575, 1841). This 

 anonymous letter, dated July 1841, was written by a man who joined 

 the annual Santa Fe caravan just before the crossing of the Arkansas 

 River in Kansas. That he and Gambel were members of the same 

 party from that time on is borne out by practically identical descrip- 

 tions of two Indian encounters in letters of the two men to people in 



