ORIGIN AND OPERATIONS OF THE EXPEDITION. 



Himalaya chains at those periods. From this side of the Andes we have not unfrcqucntly wit- 

 nessed such color about sunset, and your journey will afford opportunities to ascertain whether 

 the phenomenon is observable in the morning. Conversations with intelligent Argentines give 

 reason to believe that there are periods when the atmosphere is in such a condition about sunrise 

 as will reflect the red rays from lofty mountain tops to observers on the plain. 



"Any information you can collect respecting the populations through which you pass; their 

 resources, both agricultural and mineral ; their manufactures and commerce with other towns of 

 the republic; the number of births and deaths; the condition of morals, diseases, and crimes 

 all will give additional interest to your report. 



"In a service of the nature on which you are about to set out, of necessity, much is left to 

 your discretion. Your ability and zeal in behalf of the Expedition, and the service to which 

 we belong, afford every confidence that the duty will be executed with credit to yourself and 

 the navy. At its completion, proceed to Washington and report to me, furnishing, as shortly 

 thereafter as may be practicable, a detailed narrative, which will be presented with my report 

 to the honorable Secretary of the Navy. 



"Six hundred dollars are furnished you for travelling expenses, and a draft on Messrs. Baring 

 Brothers for 100, equal to $484, on account of your pay from 1st of October proximo, inclu- 

 sive. Of the former you will keep an exact account, taking vouchers whenever it is possible to 

 obtain them, to be returned in the settlement of your account at the office of the Fourth 

 Auditor. 



" Wishing you a pleasant journey, and early re-union with the other members of the Expe- 

 dition, I am, &c." 



Lieutenant MacRac returned to the United States in April, 1853. Having been thrown from 

 his mule shortly after leaving Mcndoza, his barometer was broken, and it was feared that the 

 rates of his chronometers were so disturbed as might throw doubt on the longitudes of the mag- 

 netical stations selected on the great pampa. Most laudably and earnestly desirous to perfect 

 his work, he immediately volunteered to return at his own cost; and being permitted to do so by 

 the honorable Secretary of the Navy, he sailed for Buenos Ayres in August, crossed both the 

 Portillo and Uspallata passes, and nnally arrived at Washington in March, 1854. His report 

 has been given at length in Vol. 2. 



It will be remembered that the programme of the Expedition proposed a collection of objects 

 in natural history. Unfortunately, our party was so small that no member of it could be spared 

 from the more pressing duties of the mission. Nevertheless, through friends, and by purchase, 

 quite a large proportion of the native birds and minerals, together with some of the mammals, 

 fish, reptiles, shells, fossils, botany, and Indian antiquities, were brought home by me. Many 

 of the mineralogical specimens are of rare interest and value. Plants, bulbs, and seeds were 

 also forwarded to the government establishment at Washington every few months of our resi- 

 dence abroad, and many of them of a useful and ornamental character, wholly new in the 

 United States, are now thriving. Such of the objects as were new to science have been well 

 figured, and are described by eminent gentlemen selected by the Smithsonian Institution, which 

 very considerately consented to direct their elaboration. The names of the naturalists prefixed 

 to the several appendices of Vol. 2, are satisfactory evidences that none could have performed 

 more ably the duties with which they had been intrusted. 



Duty having constantly confined Mr. Smith to Santiago, or its immediate vicinity, he was 

 unwilling to return to the United States without having seen something more of Chile. He 

 therefore resigned his appointment, and proceeded to the southern provinces, where he had an 

 opportunity to learn more of the Araucanians than has probably ever been permitted to an in- 

 telligent white man. We parted from him with regret. Mr. Phelps and myself embarked at 

 Valparaiso October 1, and after a detention of fourteen days on the isthmus of Panama, reached 

 New York just thirty-nine months after I had left that city. 



WASHEWTOW, 1854. j. M. GILLISS. 



