XIV 



PREFARATORY REMARKS. 



come 



(T 



raplij 

 should cease, particularly wliea the graphic representation of a country is confided to the hands 



of officers of the United States army. 



In all cases where I have used surveys other than those made under my orders, I have 

 endeavored to give full credit to the officers "by whom the labor was performed; and in cases 

 where the work has been done under my own supervision, the name of each assistant has 



been given. 



The system of borrowing, without acknowledgment, hitherto adopted, has tended very much 

 to obscure and distort the history of the explorations and surveys of the western portion of tlio 

 American continent, and has led Baron Humboldt into grave errors, and to commit personal 

 injustice, when, in his Aspects of !N"ature, he attempts to present the progress of discovery in this 

 region. 



Besides the maps named in the preceding part of these reinarks, fi.fty-four maps have been 



constructed, and are nearly completed, on a scale of -g-o^^^j-o, showing the boundary line in detail 

 from the mouth of the Kio Bravo across the continent to where the line terminates on the 



Pacific ocean. These maps, to be signed jointly by the Mexican commissioner and myself, are 

 to be deposited in the Department of the Interior, to form the official record of the boundary. 

 They are too voluminous to admit of publication, and it is believed all the information which 

 they contain is condensed in the five maps which are published. 



Since the orders first given for this work, which contemplated, in addition, an exploration of 

 a route for a railroad, a series of surveys have, by act of Congress, been organized under the 

 War Department for the purpose of ascertaining the best railroad route to the Pacific ocean. 

 All the information derived by the survey of the boundary line, including astronomical de- 



4 



terminations, topography, and barometrical levels, have been placed at the disposal of the War 

 Department in reference to its researches as to the routes for the railway. The thoroughness, 

 completeness, and fairness, with which all these investigations have been conducted by the War 

 Department, and the able manjier in which all the reports and reconnoissances have been col- 

 lated, have rendered it necessary for me to say but little of the practicability of the southern 

 route, and have necessarily relieved me of the duties expected of me in this respect. 



The reports from that department clearly demonstrate the practibility of a railroad route 

 through the newly acquired territory, and go to confirm the opinion heretofore expressed by me^ 

 that it is the most practicable, if it is not the only feasible route, by which a railway can be 

 carried across the ^^ Sierra Nevada '' and its equivalent ranges to the south. 



In my report of the proceedings of the joint commission, I have omitted the correspondence 

 which passed between the Mexican commissioner and myself, and our respective governments, 

 upon the subject of paying the three millions of dollars, the balance of the indemnity due Mexico, 

 and claimed by her representatives when the field-work of running and marking the boundary 



line was completed. 



Congi 



found in Senate Ex. Doc. No. 5T, 34th Congress, 1st session. It is sufficient for me to state 

 here that I considered the claim of Mexico premature, and that the money should not be paid 

 until the plans delineating the boundary were completed. 

 I conclude these remarks by appending extracts fn 



m the treaties defining the bou 



United States and the republic of Mexico 



me 



