52 GENERAL DESCKIPTION OF THE COUNTRY. 



should not be true to history if I did not state what is within my own j)ersonal knowledge — that 

 companies were formed^ and others forming, composed of persons of wealth, influence, and 

 adroitness, who projected extensive schemes for the purchase of these claims, with the view of 

 extorting them from the Congress of the United States. 



I have said nothing in this sketch of the races of men which inhabit this vast western region. 

 I have attempted only to present such a general view of the country as will prepare the reader 

 for the more detailed description of each portion of the boundary line, and the memoirs of the 

 assistants on the separate branches of geology, botany, and zoology, and the ethnographic 

 information which will be found in the local geographical descriptions. 



I give in its proper place a table of latitudes and longitudes determined by myself and 

 assistants, and also those determined by others, which have been used in the projection of the 

 general map which accompanies this memoir. 



The mode in which these determinations have been made will form the subject of a separate 

 chapter. It will be sufficient to state here, that the important j^oints in the boundary have all 

 been determined by the largest and most improved portable instruments — the latitudes with 

 forty- six inch zenith telescopes, by Troughton & Simms^ of London, and the longitudes by 

 moon culminations^ ohserved with telescopes of ec[ual power. As the occasion for taking these 

 large instruments into the interior of the continent, thousands of miles from navigable streams, 

 will perhaps not again soon occur, I- have aimed to produce results wdiich would inspire suffi- 

 cient confidence to make the determinations on the boundary the base of future and minor 

 surveys in the interior of the continent. It has been suggested to me that all the astronomical. 



magnetic, and hygrometric observations should be published, particularly the observations on 

 the moon and tlie moon culminating stars ; but these alone would form a volume as large as 

 the volume of observations made at the royal observatory at Greenwich, published annually. 



+ 



The results of the observations made by me and under my orders, as fast as attained, have 

 been given freely to all who asl^d for them ; hut I regret they have been used in several notable 

 instances by officers of the government, and others, without duo acknowledgment to myself or 

 my assistants. 



The best excuse that can be offered for such plagiarists is their ignorance of the labor, priva- 

 tion, self-denial and exposure incurred in the accurate determination of a single point in those 

 far distant regions* 



At none of the cardinal points have less than three lunations been used in the determination 

 of longitude, and six nights for that of latitude. 



