352 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, W04. 



Doctor Owen's commission reached him at New Harmony-, Indiana, 

 on August IT, 1839, and its acceptance demanded that he explore "all 

 the land in the Mineral Point and Galena districts which are situated 

 south of the Wisconsin and north of the Rock rivers, and west of the 

 line* dividing ranges 8 and 9 east of the fourth principal meridian; 

 together with all the surveyed lands in the Dubuque district, 11 and 

 complete his work before the approaching winter should set in. Con- 

 cerning these somewhat remarkable conditions, Owen writes: 



After duly weighing the nature of my instructions, estimating the extent of coun- 

 try to be examined, considering the wild, unsettled character of a portion of it, and 

 the scanty accommodations it could afford to a numerous party (which rendered 

 necessary a carefully calculated system of purveyance), and ascertaining that the 

 winter, in that northern region, commonly sets in with severity from the 10th to the 

 middle of November, my first impression was that the duty required of me was 

 impracticable of completion within the given time, even with the liberal permission 

 in regard to force accorded to me in my instructions. But on a more careful review 

 of the means thus placed at my disposal, I finally arrived at the conclusion that by 

 using diligent exertion, assuming much responsibility, and incurring an expense 

 which I was aware the Department might possibly not have anticipated, I might, in 

 strict accordance with my instructions, if favored by the weather and in other 

 respects, succeed in completing the exploration in the required time. 



I therefore immediately commenced engaging subagents and assistants and pro- 

 ceeded to St. Louis. There (at my own expense, to be repaid to me out of the per 

 diem of the men employed) I laid in about $3,000 worth of provisions and camp fur- 

 niture, including tents, which I caused to be made for the accommodation of the 

 whole expedition; and in one month from the day on which [ received my commis- 

 sion and instructions in Indiana (to wit, on the 17th of September) I had reached 

 the mouth of Rock River; engaged one hundred and thirty-nine subagents and assist- 

 ants; instructed my subagents in such elementary principles of geology as were neces- 

 sary to the performance of the duties required of them; supplied them with simple 

 mineraiogical tests, with the application of which they were made acquainted ; organ- 

 ized twenty-four working corps, furnished each with skeleton maps of the townships 

 assigned to them for examination, and placed the whole at the points where their 

 labors commenced, all along the southern line of the western half of the territory to 

 be examined. Thence the expedition proceeded northward, each corps being 

 required, on the average, to overrun and examine thirty quarter sections daily, and 

 to report to myself on fixed days at regularly appointed stations; to receive which 

 reports, and to examine the country in person, I crossed the district under examin- 

 ation, in an oblique direction, eleven times in the course of the survey. Where 

 appearances of particular interest presented themselves, I either diverged from my 

 route, in order to bestow upon these a more minute and thorough examination; or, 

 when time did not permit this, I instructed Dr. John Locke, of Cincinnati (formerly 

 of the geological corps of Ohio, and at present professor of chemistry in the medical 

 college of Ohio), whose valuable services I had been fortunate enough to engage on 

 this expedition, to inspect these in my stead. 



By the 24th of October the exploration of the Dubuque district was completed, and 

 the special reports of all the townships therein were dispatched to your office and to 

 the office of the register at Dubuque. On the 14th of November the survey of the 

 Mineral Point district was in a similar manner brought to a close, and by the 24th 

 of November our labors finally terminated at Stephenson, in Illinois, the examina- 

 tions of all the lands comprehended in my instructions having been completed in 



