A REPORT
OF
THE EXPLORING EXPEDITION
TO
OREGON AND NORTH CALIFORNIA,
IN THE YEARS 1843-'44.
___________
Washington City, March 1, 1845
To Colonel J.J. ABERT, Chief of the Corps of Top. Engineers:
SIR:--In pursuance of your instructions, to connect the reconnoisance of 1842, which I had the honor to conduct, with the surveys of Commander Wilkes on the coast of the Pacific ocean, so as to give a connected survey of the interior of our continent, I proceeded to the Great West early in the spring of 1843, and arrived, on the 17th of May, at the little town of Kansas, on the Missouri frontier, near the junction of the Kansas river with the Missouri river, where I was detained near two weeks in completing the necessary preparations for the extended explorations which my instructions contemplated.