346 
INCIDENTS AT THE 
On the 2d August, Colonel Graham, Principal As- 
tronomer, Lieutenants Whipple and Smith, and several 
other gentlemen arrived, and encamped near the fort. 
On the 7th August, word was brought me that 
eight or ten of our mules which were kept at the As- 
tronomical Observatory at Frontera, near El Paso, had 
been stolen by the Indians; and the following day 
Lieutenant Green set off* with a file of soldiers for So- 
corro, in order to intercept the robbers. 
Four days after this, our camps were aroused with 
the news that the Indians had made a descent upon the 
mules belonging to Colonel Craig’s command, which 
were grazing, in charge of three or four men, about a 
mile from the fort, and had run off about twenty-five 
together with some valuable horses. As soon as a party 
could be got ready they set off in pursuit, but after a 
few hours returned unsuccessful. One of the men who 
state that the line agreed upon by the Commissioners, April, 1851, is 
about thirty-three minutes north of the line contended for as that laid 
down on Disturnell’s map, but reached about sixteen minutes of an 
arc further west ; and as both lines run three degrees of longitude west, 
the difference of territory is three degrees of longitude, multiplied by 
thirty-three minutes of latitude, minus sixteen minutes of longitude, mul- 
tiplied by about forty minutes of latitude, each having a middle lati- 
tude that may for the purpose of computation be assumed at thirty-two 
degrees. Neither line gives us the road to California, and the country 
embraced in the area of difference, with the exception of a strip along the 
Rio Grande about nine miles long and from one to two wide, is barren, 
and will not produce wheat, corn, grapes, trees, or any thing useful as 
food for man or for clothing. 
Neither line will give a channel of communicafion for posts along 
the frontier, without which it is impracticable to comply with the elev- 
enth article of the treaty, which engages the United States to keep the 
Indians out of Mexico. 
