152 
EVENTS AT 
sented, in consequence of errors in the map to which 
the Commissioners were strictly confined; so that I 
feared we should not be able to agree upon the 
southern boundary of New Mexico. This is a line 
connecting the Eio del Norte with the Gila. Accord- 
ing to the treaty map (which is Disturnell’s Map of 
Mexico, of 1847), the point where the Eio Grande or 
Del Norte, strikes the southern boundary of New 
Mexico, is in latitude 32° 22' north. Thence it. runs 
westward three degrees to 107° 40' longitude west 
from Greenwich. 
On the 9th of December, the main body of the 
Commission, which I left at San Antonio, reached San 
Eleazario, and went into ^quarters at that place and at 
Socorro, a town six miles north of it. It was impossible 
to find quarters for all at either place. My official duties 
required me at El Paso, where about a dozen officers 
and laborers were quartered. Quarter-master Myer, 
with the mules, wagons, etc., and Mr. George E. 
Bartlett, Commissary, with the subsistence stores, were 
established at Socorro, while Lieutenant A. W. Whipple, 
who (by order of the Secretary of the Interior) had 
been appointed Chief Astronomer, ad interim^ had set 
up his Astronomical Observatory at San Eleazario. 
The officers, mechanics, laborers, etc., were divided 
between the two places where their services were most 
required. 
January Sth. There was quite an excitement 
to-day, in consequence of a theft by the Indians of 
forty mules belonging to Mr. Magoffin, while they 
were grazing in charge of four men on the plateau, 
three miles from my quarters (then at Mr. Magoffin’s 
