28 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 97 



dangerous ripples or ra])ids, and at 4 o'clock reached Durkee's ferry, 

 mouth of Trinity river." 



The expedition was dishanded and ( iihhs went to San Francisco. 



Quotations from two letters written by Redick JMcKee, to Luke 

 Lea, Commissioner of Indian AfTairs, Washington, will shed light 

 on subsequent events (pp. 294-297) : 



San Francisco, March i, 1852. 

 . . . Since I wrote I have received from Mr. George Gihbs his report, or 

 journal, of the expedition to northern California, accompanied by a very beauti- 

 ful map of tlie country traversed, and sundry vocabularies of the languages 

 spoken by the triljes we visited. These I design sending to you by the mail 

 which takes this ; but our friend, General S. D. King, of the land survey 

 department, is making a copy of the map, and the Senate Committee on Indian 

 Affairs desires me to afford them a reading of Mr. Gibb's views as to the 

 reservations made for the Indians, at a meeting appointed for the 4th instant . . . 



P. S. Mr. Gibbs having forwarded some sketches to Mr. Schoolcraft by the 

 last mail, I will, with this, send the vocabularies. 



The second letter reads in part : 



San Francisco, March 13, 1852. 

 Sir: My last despatch was dated ist instant, and accompanied a sealed 

 package of vocabularies, prepared by Mr. George Gibbs. I have deposited in 

 the post office, to go with this letter, Mr. Gibb's map of my route through 

 northern California, and his manuscript journal of the expedition. This journal, 

 the map, and the sketches forwarded by last steamer to Mr. Schoolcraft, will, 

 I hope, be neatly and cavcjnUy published. They will throw some additional 

 light upon a part of this State, not previously explored. On this subject, I 

 enclose letters from Mr. Gibbs to the honorable Senators Hamilton Fish and 

 Truman Smith, and to H. R. Schoolcraft, osci., which you will please read, 

 and then deliver. 



It is now possible, after the lapse of many years, to present the 

 sketches "neatly and carefully published," together with others which 

 were made by Gibbs before he joined McKee on the journey into 

 northwestern Cali f ornia. 



During sul)se(iuent years, until his de])arture from the Pacific cuast 

 late in 18O0, Gibbs' interest in the Indians continued. He made 

 vocabularies among the native triljes scattered over a wide region, 

 and gathered ethnographical material in California, Oregon, and 

 Washington, on Puget Sound and far up the Columbia. As such 

 material was at that time so plentiful, it is evident he selected choice 

 specimens to be carried, or sent, to his home in New York. If all 

 the material thus collected could be brought together, it would jn-ove 

 of special interest as representing the work of tribes then living in 

 tlieir i)rimitive state, maintaining manners and customs that had been 

 followed and practiced for generations, but wliich were soon to be 

 lost or changed through contact with those who came to claim and 

 occu]\v tlie country. 



