AND THE ADJACENT COUNTRY. 163 
nia, a distance now understood to be about one hun- 
dred and thirty miles, by the sinuosities of the river. 
With this view, I recommended to the Hon. Alex. 
H. H. Stuart, Secretary of the Interior, that Lieuten- 
ant I. G. Strain, of the Navy, an officer attached to the 
Commission, should be directed to take the four iron 
boats belonging to it, and survey the head waters of 
the Gulf of California, and the river Colorado to the 
mouth of the Gila. Lieutenant. Strain accordingly 
proceeded to Washington, and submitted to the Hon. 
Secretary of the Interior the plan embraced in the 
following letter: 
“ Wasuineton, D. C., October 31, 1850. 
“Sm :—In reference to the duty to which J. R. Bartlett, Esq., the 
United States Boundary Commissioner, requested I should be assigned, 
Thave the honor herewith to submit two projects—one of which, I hope, 
may merit your approval, 
“In assigning me to the command of the flotilla, composed of four 
boats belonging to the Boundary Commission, it was suggested that— 
in consideration of the important results which must accrue to the country 
from the early exploration and survey of the river Colorado below its 
junction with the Gila, as well as that of the upper waters of the Gulf 
of California, without which the former would be nearly valueless,—the 
Navy Department might be induced to detail the requisite number of 
seamen for the management of the boats; which would thus materially 
lessen the outlay of the fund appropriated for the prosecution of the 
Boundary Survey. Nomen could be obtained better adapted to this 
duty than seamen. 
“The importance ef the examination proposed by Mr. Bartlett, is 
obvious to every one acquainted with the present state of our new ter- 
-Titories on the Pacific, while the peculiar nature of the case does not 
place the duties in any particular department of the government. The 
examination of the upper part of the Gulf, and that portion of the Colo- 
© between its mouth and junction with the Gila, cannot be consider- 
ed as pertaining to the ‘ Coast Survey,’ as it is entirely embraced in the 
