PARTIAL RESULTS OF EXPLORATION. 



453 



can be reached from the Bois de Sioux by crossing the Missouri and Yellowstone, and thus 

 abridging distance. 



Winter examinations to be continued. 



I will here observe that, through the Indian agents and sub-agents, I shall be able to get a large 

 body of meteorological observations with but little additional expense, except the cost of instru 

 ments. I will recommend that, whatever operations the department mny think advisable to be 

 carried on, on this route, the operations of the fall and winter be restricted to the examination of 

 the lower Columbia and the line of the Snoqualme Pass, and that next spring and summer the 

 operations eastward be vigorously pushed. 



I will state that, in connexion with the Blackfoot council, I shall make my arrangements to 

 leave the Sound in April, to reach Fort Benton late in June, and, remaining there six weeks, to 

 return and reach the Sound again in October. I refer to this to show with what ease I shall be 

 able to direct the operations in the field. 



My feeble health, the last seventeen days, will explain the delay which has occurred in trans 

 mitting this report. It has only been within a day or two that I have been able to do much 

 work. 



I am, sir, very respectfully, your most obedient servant, 



ISAAC I. STEVENS, 

 Governor of Washington Territory, in Charge of Exploration. 



Hon. JEFFERSON DAVIS, 



Secretary of War, Washington, D. C. 



N. B. Besides the railroad profile referred to in this report, I send the profiles of the route of 

 the main train. The railroad line was got in through the labors of the civil engineers, Messrs. 

 Lander and Tinkham, who were constantly occupied in side reconnaissances, and is the result of 

 the observations on the main trail; of careful observations, by the barometer, of prominent land 

 marks off the main trail ; and of careful observations of the course of streams, and the general 

 trend of the country. 



I send also the two sheets giving the work in detail. But I am now engaged in a careful re 

 adjustment of the latitudes and odometer survey to the longitudes determined by Wilkes and 

 ISicollet, which will occupy me some two or three days, and which will be made the basis of a 

 special report. 



LIST OF LATITUDES. 



