and who was a skilful practical astronomer, did a good amount of valuable geographical work in the years 1836-1843, first on his own private responsibility, and afterwards in the employ of the government, and chiefly about the sources of the Mississippi. The region he explored, and was the first to map approximately, has since been surveyed by the United States Land Office and has become the flourishing State of Minnesota ; but the value of Nicollet's service, as one of the pioneer geographers of the country, cannot be forgotten. He was the first explorer in this country who used the barometer with skill for the determination of elevations in the interior, and it was as his assistant that Fremont learned the use of portable astronomical instruments.

We have now mentioned all the most important reconnoissances and explorations, having for their object the development of the geography of the Far West, previous to those of Fremont. With this energetic and intrepid, if not always judicious, explorer, may be said to have commenced the first systematic investigation of the geography of the region west of the Rocky Mountains. Thanks chiefly to the influence of his father-inlaw, Colonel Benton, Fremont, whose explorations began in 1842, was well fitted out by the government both as to men and instruments, and he had a great advantage over all previous workers in that field, in that he was accompanied by a skilful assistant, Charles Preuss, so that he could devote himself to the astronomical observations, while Preuss attended to the delineation of the topographical features of the country, — a kind of work in which he was highly proficient. Fremont made several expeditions across the mountains, in the fourth and last. one of which the party suffered terribly, having been overtaken by winter snow-storms, so that, as is universally believed in California, they were driven to actual cannibalism.

It is only the three first expeditions which are important, or of which any account has been published. The first was in 1842, up the Platte to the Sweetwater, then to the Wind River range, and back down the North Platte. The reports of this and the next expedition that of 1843 and 1844 were issued together, and have been much more widely circulated and read than any other geographical documents of the kind ever

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published in this country. This second expedition, in which Fremont supposed that he had discovered the "Great Basin," in which, as we have seen, he was anticipated by Bonneville, was really a grand triumph over every kind of obstacle; it was, however, less remarkable than that of his predecessor; since, while the one was accompanied by a large and well armed party, provided even with artillery, the other was only one of a small band of volunteer explorers, more than half of whom were swept off in one battle with the Indians. Fremont's party started from Kansas in May, 1843, on the second expedition across the mountains. They followed up one of the branches of the Platte, through the Black Hills, up the Sweetwater, to South Pass, then generally supposed to be the proper line for a railroad across the continent, thence by a circuitous route to the Boise River and the Columbia; thence on the east side of the Cascade Range, by Pyramid and Mud Lakes, down the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada, which was crossed in midwinter after much suffering and many dangers. At the great ranch of Sutter, one of the survivors of the Swiss guard of Charles X., who had settled near the junction of the American River with the Sacramento, Fremont was hospitably received; and, after recruiting his party, he started on the return trip, going south to the head of the Tulare Valley, and then recrossing the Sierra, and back through the southern portion of the Great Basin to the Parks of the Rocky Mountains, and down the Arkansas to the starting-point, which he reached after fourteen months of almost continuous journeying.

Of the next expedition, in 1845-46, the results have never been published; but in 1848 a map was issued, accompanied by a pamphlet entitled "A Geographical Memoir upon Upper California." This map was the first representation of our Western territory which made anything more than a distant approach to correctness. It gave at least a tolerable general idea of the most striking geographical features of the region : the Parks, the Sierra Nevada, the Great Basin, with its nearly parallel north and south ranges; the great Lava Plain of Oregon; the dry plateaux of Southern Utah and California: these were all indicated with more or less clearness.

And now, just at the close of Fremont's career as an

explorer, came an event which had a lasting influence in a variety of directions, and among others in that of the geography of the West. The Californian gold excitement, and the consequent rush of emigration across the plains to the Pacific shore, seemed all at once to bring that region close to us which had been before so distant and little cared for. The establishment of a line of steamers by way of the Isthmus of Panama to California led to the building of a railroad to connect the two oceans at a convenient point. Soon communication by rail through the heart of the continent began to be talked about, but at first as something only possible perhaps in a distant future. The matter was more and more discussed, and then Congress was appealed to, and it was urged that a survey should be ordered for the purpose of ascertaining the most feasible route. Appropriations were made for this purpose, and several surveying parties organized under the direction of the Secretary of War, officers of the United States Engineer Corps being placed in command of them. The work was continued from 1852 to 1857; and in addition to the reconnoissances made with a special view to railroad routes, there was considerable topographical material collected, and quite a number of naturalists were also employed in investigating the geology of the region traversed, and in making collections in all departments of natural history. The routes explored were near the forty-ninth, forty-seventh, forty-first, thirty-eighth, thirty-fifth, and thirty-second parallels. The work was hastily, and some of it carelessly, done, most of the persons employed having had little or no experience in topographical or geological surveys; but, on the whole, the results formed a large addition to our previous stock of knowledge; and the collections, especially, were of great value as giving the material for making out a pretty full account of the distribution of animals and plants over the vast area traversed by the exploring parties. Thirteen ponderous quartos were issued within two or three years after the field work had been completed, and are familiar to all as to their exterior, at least as the "Report of the United States Pacific Railroad Surveys." Maps were made by each party of the region embraced within the area of its explorations; and from them, and all

other available sources of information, a general map was compiled under the direction of Lieutenant (now General) Warren. This map has been so much altered and worked over at the United States Engineer Bureau, since its first appearance in 1857, that it has but little now remaining on it of the original material. Its scale is about forty-seven miles to an inch, and it was compiled and drawn with great care and skill by Mr. Freyhold, much difficulty having been found in reconciling the erroneous and conflicting determinations of longitude, as is fully set forth in the elaborate and valuable memoir by General Warren which accompanied the map in question. Indeed, it was especially with regard to longitudes that the United States Pacific Railroad surveys were deficient, there being but few good instruments taken into the field, and fewer still of good observers who went with them. A delay of a few months in beginning the work, supposing the interval to have been devoted to preparing suitable instruments and training observers in their use, would have added greatly to the value of the results. As it happened, curiously enough, not one foot of the ground explored by these parties for a transcontinental railroad is passed over by the line as it has actually been built, excepting the valley of the Humboldt River, which was part of the regular emigration route at that time, and almost an unavoidable link between the Atlantic and Pacific.

The Mexican and Northwestern boundary surveys have accurately fixed the lines which separate us from British territory on the north and Mexican on the south. The former was completed in 1856, and the latter much more recently. The results were of little value from a geographical point of view, since the topography was worked up only in the immediate vicinity of the lines surveyed. A Report on the Mexican Boundary Survey was published by our government, in two volumes, and illustrated without regard to expense, the most valuable portion of it being that relating to the botany of the region adjacent to the line. No full report has ever been issued with regard to the running of the Northwestern boundary, nor have any of the maps been published. The line has been established and marked, and left to time and the Indians to take care of. So with other government surveys of lines dividing

the individual States. They have not been creditable to the country, either in the methods or accuracy of the work; neither have they added much to our knowledge of the geography of the country, and rarely has anything been published in regard to their results. The work done on the line between California and Nevada is one of the worst instances of this putting of costly and important undertakings in the hands of incompetent men.

The expedition of Lieutenant Ives up the Colorado River, made in 1857, 1858, developed interesting facts in regard to the physical geography and geology of that very remarkable region; but the chartographic portion is very defective, the work having been of the most sketchy description.

At the time of the commencement of the War of the Rebellion, there were several reports of geographical explorations in the possession of our government, whose publication was delayed by the troublous condition of the times, and which appear now to be buried in the archives of the departments at Washington, and destined never to see the light. One of these reports was an important one; it related to an expedition under the direction of Colonel Macomb, having for its object the exploration of the San Juan River, one of the principal affluents of the Colorado on the south side. Another was that of General Warren's reconnoissance, in 1855-1857, in Nebraska and Dakota; and still another contained an account of the reconnoissance of the head-waters of the Missouri and the Yellowstone under Captain Raynolds, in 1859, 1860. The geographical results furnished by these various expeditions, and by many other less important ones, made under government auspices, have gone to the United States Engineer Bureau, and have been utilized in working over Warren's map of the United States. They were all reconnoissances, and almost without exception too defective in the astronomical determination of position to allow of their being used, except for a general map on a very small scale, where detail was not necessary, and where discrepancies of a few miles could be easily put out of sight.

Up to 1860, the United States had been entirely unsupported by the individual States and Territories in the work of adding to our stock of geographical knowledge of the Far West. The