86 RETURN FROM SAN FRANCISCO 
Zuni River to the Colorado, and thence by Fort 
Yuma to California. Mr. Leroux now wished to re- 
turn to New Mexico, and offered me the services of 
himself and two men, together with several pack and 
riding mules, for a moderate: compensation. As my 
party was now quite reduced, and as it was necessary 
to hire more men, I gladly accepted the proposals of 
Mr. L., and placed the animals and arrieros directly 
under his charge, with orders to prepare the train as 
soon as possible for the march. 
While these preparations were being made, Lieute- 
nant Whipple and his assistants were busily occupied 
in reducing his astronomical observations, and in plot- 
ting the maps of the survey of the Gila as far as it had 
been carried. Duplicates were also made of all the 
notes connected with the survey, which were trans- 
mitted by an officer to Washington for safe keeping. 
For Lieutenant Whipple’s Report of the survey of the 
Gila, see Appendix D. 
Before Captain Ottinger left, he invited me, with 
others of the Commission, to accompany him on in 
excursion to the Coronado Islands, a small group lying 
twenty miles from San Diego. Some ten or twelve 
gentlemen availed themselves of the Captain’s polite- 
ness; and, on the morning of the 5th of May, the 
“Frolic” stood out to sea with a north-west wind, 
which brought us to the islands in three hours. We 
came to anchor about a quarter of a mile east of the 
larger and more southerly island of the group. 
One party immediately went with Captain Ottin- 
ger to examine the anchorage about the islands, while 
the other landed. This island rises so abruptly from 
