[I'-28] Not 26 m. after crossing the river, but from last camp, from which it is about 26 m. to make the crossing. In this trip Pike turns the W. and S. flank of the Sierra de los Caballos or Horse mts., having these first E. and then N. of his route (on his left all the way). In so doing he passes from Sierra into Dona Ana Co., and goes by a number of notable points, some of which he maps. On the W. side of the river, in Dona Ana Co., at or near present Santa Barbara, was the site of old Fort Thorn and the old Indian Agency; Beck's ferry was also hereabouts. Pike sets four mountains on his right, at different distances to the W. and S. These are lettered (1) "Esterolargo," (2) "S. Jacomb," (3) "La Salmera," (4) "Piadro." These are some of the most elevated points in the rugged and irregularly broken country to the south of the Horse and Mimbres ranges; and their relative positions as mapped by Pike agree so well with those of certain well-known elevations that identifications may be attempted: (1) Esterolargo seems to correspond to the Cerro Magdalen, between Fort Selden on the E. and old Fort Cummings on the W. (2) is in the position of the Good Sight mts., about half-way between the Magdalens and Fort Cummings. A branch of the A., T., and S. F. R. R., from Rincon on the Rio Grande to Deming, runs past the Magdalens (station Sellers) and thence through the Good Sight mts. by Burr's Pass (station Nutt), between Good Sight Peak and Sunday Cone. Fort Cummings was built in that southern extension of the Mimbres range known as Cooke's range: leave railroad for the fort at Cummings station, or keep on past Coleman to Deming, etc. (3) is Cerro Robledo, on W. bank of the Rio Grande, immediately S. of Fort Selden. (4) may be intended for the Florida mts., on the boundary between Dona Ana and Grant cos., directly S. of Fort Cummings 20 and 30 m., not so far S. E. of Deming. Pike crosses the Rio Grande from W. to E., at or near where the railroad now crosses in passing between stations Hatch (Colorado) and Rincon; camp at this place or in its immediate vicinity, about opposite town of Angostura.
The practically identical language of Mar. 17th and 18th shows that Pike has duplicated an entry, and consequently that one day's march has been lost. This loss is irretrievable, so far as I can discover. Furthermore, we have no mileages for the 19th and 20th. Under these circumstances the best we can do is to march him into El Paso in three laps, set three camps ex hypothesi, and note in due order the places on the road over which we know he passed.
[I'-29] To camp at some point between Fort Selden and Dona Ana, probably not far beyond the site of the former post. The Military Reservation upon which this long noted fort was established includes a tract a few miles square on both sides of the river, between the Cerro Robledo on the S. and San Diego mt. on the N. and N. W.; eastward are some elevations known as the Dona Ana hills; the Cerro Magdalen is due W., but at a much greater distance. A few miles below Rincon and Angostura the river enters the Selden cañon, where it is straitened between Mt. San Diego on the E. and highlands on the W.; the railroad traverses this cañon, with the stations Tonuco near its head and Randall below; the position of the fort is between the latter and Leasburg, on the E. bank of the river. Pike's map shows a marked bend or loop of the dotted trail of the 18th, and I suppose this indicates where he went around Mt. San Diego. There used to be a place called San Diego here, about opposite the point where the old Cooke trail left the river. Dona Ana was founded on the E. bank of the river, say 60 m. by road from El Paso. This town was started in or about 1839, by settlers from El Paso, and 10 years later had a population of 300, mostly Mexicans, who required the protection of the military from the Apaches. The railroad passes by but not through the present town, which has given name to the county, though the county seat is at Las Cruces. Both of these places are included in the Dona Ana Bend Colony tract.
The Cooke trail above mentioned is that made by Lieut.-Col. Philip St. George Cooke, commanding the Mormon battalion of the Army of the West on the march from Santa Fé, N. M., to San Diego, Cal., under the guidance of Antoine Leroux, in the autumn of 1846. It will be found very clearly traced, from the point of departure from the Rio Grande to the Pima villages on the Gila, on the sketch-map accompanying that officer's report to General Kearny, Ex. Doc. No. 41, 30th Congr., 1st Sess., pub 1848, pp. 549-563. It is a roundabout way which loops far S. and strikes the San Pedro several days' march above the confluence of that stream with the Gila, follows the San Pedro down a piece northward, then strikes westward to Tucson, and so on N. W. to the Gila at the Pima villages. The distance is represented to have been 544 m.
[I'-30] Fra Cristobal, that is, but to be distinguished from Pike's Sierra Christopher: see [note23, p. 633], and [note25, p. 635]. The road which Pike thus struck was in direct continuation of the Jornada del Muerto, on the way to El Paso, and led by Las Cruces, present seat of Dona Ana Co. This has been for many years one of the best-known places on the Rio Grande between Santa Fé and El Paso; it is located a little off the river, on the E. side. In the vicinity of Las Cruces, on the E. bank of the river, is Messilla, another well-known town. The party proceeded past Tortugas and Bosquecito, to a point somewhere beyond the site of old Fort Fillmore, and probably within the present limits of the Brazito tract. This camp might be fixed more exactly by one who could say how far short it was of a certain salt lake likely to be reached at 10 a. m. next day. The route along here, as indeed from Fort Selden, is practically coincident with that of the railroad. Brazito became the famous name of a battle-ground, after Christmas Day of 1846, when Colonel Doniphan's regiment defeated and routed a superior force of Mexicans who attacked him. A spirited account of this engagement is given by John T. Hughes, Don. Exp. 1847, pp. 96-99, including a plan of the battle-ground. The engagement lasted half an hour, about 3 p. m. The spot is given as "25 m." from El Paso, opposite a large island in the Rio Grande, and also opposite a pass between the lower end of the Organ mts. and others called the "White" mts. The Mexicans numbered about 1,300 men, of whom 71 were killed, 5 taken prisoners, and not less than 150 wounded, including their general, Ponce de Leon; the American casualty was 8 wounded—none killed.
On Pike's left as he passes stand the Organ or Organon mts., as now so called in strictness, being that southward continuation of the San Andreas range which is marked off by a gap from the rest of the chain. This gap is the San Augustin Pass; place there called Organ, 15 m. E. by N. from Dona Ana. Pike charts these mountains: see [note23, p. 631]. They run about S., and as the river is here bearing S. S. E., the two approach within 10 to 5 m. in the vicinity of the place where Fort Fillmore stood. Pike's "Sierra de la Cola," as laid down close to the river, but due E. of El Paso, appears to correspond with what is now known as the Franklin range, around which the river finally turns E. to escape from all confinement. Along the Rio Grande itself his map marks nothing whatever from the vicinity of Fort Selden to El Paso. But we are now approaching some of the most important points of the whole route.
[I'-31] In the vicinity of Montoyo, Tex., in the extreme W. corner of the State. Passing successively Mesquite, Herron, and Lyndon, on the railroad, with San Miguel (Baca Grant), La Mesa, and Chamberino in succession on the other side of the river, Pike comes to the station Anthony and the parallel of 32° N.; on crossing which he goes from Dona Ana Co., N. M., into El Paso Co., Tex., as he proceeds down the left or E. bank of the river; had he been on the other side he would have remained in New Mexico until he entered present Chihuahua at lat. 31° 47´ N. For the course of the Rio Grande itself makes the irregular boundary of Texas for 15 or 20 m., from the point where the parallel of 32° N. strikes the river from the E., to that where the parallel of 31° 47´ N. leaves the river on the W. This break or fault (as a miner would say of a lead that acted so) of the straight border between Texas and New Mexico, where the boundary slips 13´ S. down the Rio Grande, is one of the politico-geographical curiosities of the situation, which would only be fully understood upon mastering the complicated history of the U. S. and Mexican Boundary Survey in all the bitterness of its personal episodes. Some of these points are considered in the [following note]. From lat. 31° 47´ N. on the Rio Grande, in the immediate vicinity of El Paso, Tex., and of El Paso del Norte (Ciudad Juarez), in Chihuahua, the river forms the boundary between the United States and the Republic of Mexico—that is, between Texas and the Mexican States of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and Tamaulipas—on a circuitous but in general S. E. course to the Gulf of Mexico.
[I'-32] The celebrated place to which our friend has thus been conducted by his friends, the enemy, must not be confounded with our little town of El Paso, Tex. This grew up yesterday, so to speak; that dates from about 1680, as a Spanish settlement begun after the great Pueblo revolt, when Governor Otermin's people were driven out of Santa Fé. Before Pike was welcomed by the civil and ecclesiastical dignitaries of El Paso del Norte, he crossed the great river, and thus passed from the State of Texas into that of Chihuahua, as these are now bounded. He would have said that he simply went across the river which flows in the province of North or New Mexico of the kingdom of New Spain, and had not yet reached the province of New Biscay. But aside from any of the political affairs which spoil the complexion of the maps, El Paso is one of the most remarkable positions in North America, unique in some respects. With regard to the tide of emigration which set westward by southern lines of travel to the California of the forty-niners, it is comparable with that place by which, from time immemorial, the nations have passed from Asia into Europe, along what has been fitly styled the "highway of the world." But El Paso is not only a half-way house from the Gulf of Mexico to that of California; it is the continental cross-roads. For the ebb and flow of human tides set with conflicting currents, north and south, long before the first page of American history was traced, and will continue forever in motion by El Paso. There is the turning-point of that great river which was Rio del Norte above this pass, and Rio Grande or Rio Bravo below. "El Paso" is certainly, as it always has been, the place of fording or crossing the river—Gregg says it was called by Americans "The Pass," and speaks of "Pass wine" and "Pass whiskey," as they named the liquors made there—but that is not the implication of the name. "El Paso" is the mountain-pass—el paso del Rio del Norte—the place where the river passes from the mountains to the plains. We have traced it from Pike's stockade on the Conejos, in the San Luis valley, almost due S., in an immense trough of several hundred miles' length, during the whole of which distance it has been seen to be closely confined to its mountain bed, hemmed in on the W. by the continental divide or its several outliers, on the E. by successive ranges of not less dignity and importance. In all this course it receives no more than mere creeks from the eastern side; while from the W. its tributaries are comparatively few and small rivers. But at El Paso the river turns out of bed, so to say, with hardly a figure of speech, to go all abroad in the open country, drawing to itself large tributaries on its way to the sea. Yet it has another strait-jacketing to suffer in forcing its way through the last mountains that rise to obstruct its course. The struggle begins near the entrance of the Rio Conchas and in the vicinity of Presidio del Norte, one of the oldest establishments in northern Mexico; it continues for many miles through a series of cañons in the Bofecillos, San Carlos, and other mountains. During this passage the river makes a sharp elbow from S. E. northward, and then with a bold sweep recovers its former course; it receives its tribute from the Pecos, its largest branch; then, freed from its last fetters and augmented in force, the Rio Grande winds its way to the Gulf, having well won the title "Bravo." Such action is the more to be applauded if we remember that above the cañon-formations the river sometimes sinks exhausted into the ground, and its bed may become for many miles a wagon-road. The great flexures of the river lie within about a degree of latitude (29° to 30° N.), and the series of cañons is between the 102d and 105th meridians. Major Emory speaks of that great bend of the river as "one of the most remarkable features on the face of the globe—that of a river traversing at an oblique angle a chain of lofty mountains, and making through these, on a gigantic scale, what is called in Spanish America a cañon—that is, a river hemmed in by vertical walls," U. S. and Mex. B. Surv. I. 1857, p. 42. With due deference, and no desire to derogate from the dignity, either of the Rio Grande or of its cañonation, I do not see that we have not several parallel cases in this country, some of which are on a scale of not inferior magnitude. The essential features of the case are those of a great river which has once left its bed in mountains about its origin, traversed open country, and then forced its way through cañon-formation in another range or spur. The Arkansaw, heading in the continental divide, breaks out upon the plain at Cañon City, through a chasm in another range. The South Platte traverses South Park, and the North Platte, North Park, to seek the plains through other mountains than those in which they respectively head. The Yellowstone has its upper cañon and then comes out at Livingston through a lower one. The Missouri itself leaves its sources far remote from the range through which it finally makes its exit from Lewis and Clark's Gates of the Rocky Mountains. And just think of the Columbia!
Pike has nothing to say of any place on the Rio Grande opposite the Mexican town of El Paso, at or near where El Paso stands in Texas. But the valley has been settled and cultivated from remote antiquity, and the clustering of the population at various points gave rise to towns or pueblos, all of which, of course, had names, though several of these have lapsed forever. Maps now nearly half a century old mark on the Texan side several places by the names of Frontera, La Frontera, or Las Fronteras; Isleta, a Tañoan pueblo (in what is now Texas—distinguish from the other Tañoan pueblo, Isleta, in New Mexico); Socorro; San Elceario, or Elizario; also, Franklin and Fort Bliss—all these before there was any El Paso in Texas. Present maps show, below Montoyo, Santa Teresa, Frontera, El Paso, Isleta, San Elizario, and so on down the river along the railroad. As to the germ of the American town of El Paso, we find that Captain S. G. French, in 1849, came up the Rio Grande "to the intersection of the Santa Fé road at the rancho opposite El Paso"; and again: "El Paso is wholly situated in Mexico—there being, excepting the three villages on the island [San Elizario, Socorro, Isleta], but three houses on the American side." French's mileages by odometer in coming up the river on the Texan side, are: San Elizario to Socorro, 5.45 m.; Socorro to Isleta, 3.10; Isleta to Upper Ford, 7.05; Upper Ford to Coon's Hacienda, 7.09; total, 22.69, or 22⅔ m. from San Elizario to where the Santa Fé road came to the river to cross to El Paso, Mex. (Reports of Reconn., etc., 8vo, Washington, 1850, p. 53—not a book very easy to find.) A table of distances in the reverse direction and bringing in two more of the above names, is furnished by Major Emory, U. S. and M. B. S., I. 1857, p. 135: Franklin (opposite El Paso) to Fort Bliss, 2 m.; Fort Bliss to Isleta, 12.14; Isleta to Socorro, 3.10; Socorro to San Elceario, 5.45; total, 22.69, or 22⅔ m., as before. If these were independent measurements, the odometers must have been good, as well as the road; but I cite them both to show that Coon's Hacienda, Franklin, and El Paso, Tex., were the same place, opposite El Paso, Mex., and that Fort Bliss was built 2 m. lower down. Writing of the early fifties, Emory also states, op. cit., p. 91: "From San Elceario up to El Paso, a distance by the sinuosities of the river of 30 miles, but by air-line of only 20 miles, is almost one continuous settlement of Mexicans and Pueblo Indians, with here and there an American farmer and trader." His estimates of the population all along, from El Paso, Mex., to San Elceario, are: El Paso (including the very ancient Tañoan pueblo of Sinecu, supposed to have been built before the Spaniards came), 4,000; Franklin (present El Paso, Tex.), 200; Socorro, 300; San Elceario, 1,200; with 1,300 at places still further down, making a total of 7,000. Isleta does not figure in this census. This population was mostly mixed, with little pure Spanish, or Indian either. The commercial importance of El Paso as a port of entry may be inferred from Emory's statement that, before the ports on the lower Rio Bravo were opened, for some years as much as $2,000,000 worth of goods passed into Mexico this way; figures supposed to have been reduced more than one-half at the time of which he wrote. He describes the town of El Paso, Mex., as "one extended vineyard in the hands of many proprietors." The little town of Frontera, above mentioned, acquired some consequence in 1852 from the erection there in 1851 of one of the astronomical stations at which Major Emory, U. S. Commissioner, and Don José Salazar y Larregui, Comisionado Mexicano, determined the initial point of the boundary W. of the Rio Grande along the par. of 31° 47´ N. The position of Frontera, as decided and agreed upon by the Joint Commission, was lat. 31° 48´ 44.31´´ N., long. 106° 33´ 04.5´´ W. That of El Paso, Mex., or more exactly, of the cathedral in that place, was lat. 31° 44´ 15.7´´ N., long. 166° 29´ 05.4´´ W. Frontera was thus about 4 minutes N. and W. of El Paso, and the boundary started W. between these two places at a point 3.41 m. about N. W. of El Paso, and 2.70 m. about S. E. of Frontera; the total distance between these two places being 6.11 m. As the Rio Grande itself was the natural boundary agreed upon from the Gulf of Mexico to the point where the river should intersect the parallel of 31° 47´, the various questions that were to be determined concerned only the boundary thence W. across country to the Gulf of California and so on to the Pacific. Two different boundaries were in diplomatic agreement for some years before either of them was ascertained on the ground. These were those provided for by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Feb. 2d, 1848, ratified Aug., 1848, and by the Gadsden treaty of Dec. 30th, 1853, ratified June 30th, 1854. Under the former of these, two abortive attempts were made to establish two different lines W. of the Rio Grande; and it was fortunate for us that neither of them succeeded. The old treaty was made in the dark, on our part at least, being based upon the ignorance of geography which Disturnell's map displayed in 1847. The old treaty line started on paper from the Rio Grande at a point some miles above Frontera, went W. on a certain parallel of latitude, hypothetical on the ground, for about 180 m., through the Chiricahua mts., and then turned due N. along a never-determined meridian till it struck Rio Gila, which was thence the boundary W. to the Rio Colorado. The line agreed upon by U. S. Commissioner John B. Weller and General Conde, the Comisionado Mexicano, started W. from the Rio Grande at a point in the vicinity of Dona Ana, ran along a parallel for the same distance as the other, and then turned N. on a meridian to the Gila, striking the latter at a point further down that river—further N. W., that is, owing to the difference of longitude of the initial point on the Rio Grande. Both of these were paper-lines, assumed when the two governments were feeling for S. and W. borders of New Mexico as laid down on Disturnell's map; for Article V. of the G. H. '48 treaty provided that from the intersection of the Rio Grande with the S. border of New Mexico (wherever that might be) the line should run W. along the whole S. border of New Mexico, and then turn N. along the W. border of the same to the Gila. This was decidedly a case of obscurum per obscurius, so far as laying down an actual line was concerned, for nobody knew where the S. and W. borders of New Mexico were, within several minutes of latitude and longitude. The Weller-Conde line above noted started from the Rio Grande at lat. 32° 22´, near Dona Ana, and went due W. upon an assumed S. boundary of N. M. In 1851 such an initial point had been agreed upon; a monument erected; and actual survey begun by Col. J. D. Graham. The other assumed S. boundary of N. M., along which a line was projected W. of the Rio Grande from an initial point in the vicinity of Frontera, was very near 31° 47´. Both luckily failed to go into effect. Such a comedy of errors, beginning on a false basis, was conducted through a tissue of blunders to an inevitable and fortunate fiasco. The work of the old boundary survey was prosecuted under a series of commissioners—John B. Weller; John C. Frémont, who accepted the appointment, but never got on the ground, and did nothing but resign; John R. Bartlett; and Robert B. Campbell. It wound up in 1853 as an ignominious and acrimonious failure, for which net result Congress had appropriated $787,112. This was expensive, but profitable in the end; for the event proved that a different boundary would come cheap at that or almost any other price. Almost down to 1848, the topography of the country between the Rio Grande and the Colorado of the West was practically unknown to Americans. But adventurers, traders, and emigrants had begun to set their faces toward the west along our borders; and the question of the most practicable southern route became one of great and growing importance. The War Department put exploring parties in the field; and through the labors of such officers as Emory, Abert, Parke, Marcy, Sitgreaves, Simpson, Whipple, Michler, J. E. Johnston, S. G. French, W. F. Smith, F. T. Bryan, and others, new light was thrown upon a vast region, to much of which El Paso was the key. Among other things, Emory developed the fact that there could be no thoroughfare through U. S. territory in the vicinity of 32° N., the country being practically impassable by any means of transportation then available along the parallel of 32°, N. of the projected boundary. The G. H. treaty '48, to use Emory's words, "fixed a line north of that parallel which cut off entirely the communication by wagons between the rivers [Rios Grande and Gila]; and leaving out of view the considerations involved in securing railway routes to the Pacific, it was a line which sooner or later must have been abandoned. No traveller could pass, nor could a dispatch be sent, from a military post on the Rio Bravo to one on the Gila, without passing through Mexican territory." Our Mexican neighbors evidently knew their country, as well as what they were about, much better than we did, until we learned to our cost what the matter was. The already notorious errors of the Disturnell map made any adjustment of the difficulty on that basis impossible, and some different understanding between the two countries became an obvious necessity. This was effected by the Gadsden treaty of 1853, which provided for the reconstruction of the international line on paper, and its determination on the ground. By the provisions of this agreement, the line was to run up the Rio Grande, as already defined by the G. H. treaty '48, to the point where the middle of the river should intersect the parallel of 31° 47´ N.; thence due W. 100 m.; thence due S. to the parallel of 31° 20´ N.; thence due W. to the meridian of 111° W.; thence in a straight line to a point on the Colorado r. 20 English miles below the confluence of the Gila; thence up the Colorado r. to the intersection of the already existing U. S. and Mexican line across California to the Pacific. The concessions represented by these terms were all-important to us; they not only secured the required practicable highway from the Rio Grande to the Gila, but added 26,185 sq. m. to U. S. territory, as was discovered when the line was run. This tract lies between the parallels of 31° 20´ and 33° 30´ N., and between the meridians of 106° 30´ and 114° W.; it may be called, in a phrase, so much of the U. S. as lies S. of the Gila, in New Mexico and mainly in Arizona. William Hensley Emory was commissioned by President Pierce, Aug. 4th, '54, to carry out the provisions of the treaty on the part of the U. S., and Don José Salazar y Larregui was appointed to the same official functions on the part of Mexico. Major Emory was required to meet the Mexican commissioner at El Paso by Oct. 1st, 1854, and the commission took the field without delay. Congress appropriated $168,130, Aug. 14th, '54, and $71,450, Mar. 3d, '55; total, $239,580, for running and marking the line. When the work had been done, Jan. 1st, 1856, Major Emory reported an unexpended balance of $98,454.59. He had also to turn in, as unexpended balance of certain appropriations for the old commission (altogether $58,100), the sum of $37,345.53; total to his credit, $135,800.12, remaining of the sum of $239,580 + $58,100 = $297,680, of which he had the disbursement and was responsible. It thus appears that his whole work cost the government only $161,879.87; it was finished within the time estimated by the government for its completion, and largely within the amounts appropriated for the purpose. The boundary run by Emory and Salazar, respectively, agreed upon by them jointly, and accepted by both governments, is at present in effect. It starts from the Rio Grande between El Paso and Frontera, at 31° 47´, and runs W. on that parallel 100 m., to a certain spot commonly referred to by the name of Carrizalillo, as that of the nearest named locality; thence it drops meridionally to the parallel of 31° 20´, at a nameless place in the mountains; thence it runs due W. to the intersection of the 111th meridian at a well-known place, Los Nogales; whence it runs obliquely to the Colorado r., at a point which is (roundly) 20 m. S. of Fort Yuma by the channel of the river—Yuma being on the W. bank, and practically opposite the mouth of the Gila. Aside from any question of the 25,185 sq. m. and the desirable right of way thus secured, under the provisions of the Gadsden treaty, the abrogation of the 11th article of the G. H. treaty was all-important to the U. S. "This article," to use Major Emory's words, "made it incumbent on the United States to keep the Indians living within our own territory from committing depredations on the Mexicans, and by implication imposed on the United States the obligation of indemnity for all losses resulting from failure to carry out the provisions of the treaty. No amount of force could have kept the Indians from crossing the line to commit depredations, and I think that one hundred millions would not pay the damages they have inflicted. Whole sections of country have been depopulated and the stock driven off and killed; and in entire States the ranches have been deserted and the people driven into the towns. It is true, all this has not been done since the war [with Mexico], and would form no just claim against the United States; but those conversant with the history of Mexican claims will at once admit that the United States would have been fortunate if she could have escaped with paying real claims for depredations, whether committed before or after the war. I should not be true to history if I did not state what is within my own personal knowledge—that companies were formed, and others forming, composed of persons of wealth, influence, and adroitness, who projected extensive schemes for the purchase of these claims, with the view of extorting them from the Congress of the United States." Not the least admirable feature of the present treaty, and one which was of equal moment to all respectable citizens of both countries, was the fullness of the powers it vested in the two commissioners. For Art. I. has: "That line shall be alone established upon which the commissioners may fix, their consent in this particular being considered decisive and an integral part of this treaty, without necessity of ulterior ratification or approval, and without room for interpretation of any kind by either of the parties contracting." This kept the dirty hands of professional politicians out of the affair, and left it to be settled by two honorable and able men, free to act at their best judgment and discretion, besides being competent to the requisite scientific work in astronomy and geodesy. The joint commission, in session on the spot, agreed upon the initial point of 31° 47´ N. on the W. bank of the Rio Grande, Jan. 10th, 1855; they marked it and agreed to erect the monument there. The corner-stone was laid Jan. 31st, in the presence of each other and of various civil and military dignitaries. The commissioners reconvened at Fort Bliss, Aug. 14th-16th, 1855, to consider the operations which had meanwhile been carried on by themselves and their respective assistants; whereupon they agreed to declare and did declare the line surveyed, marked, and established as far W. as the 111th meridian, and from the 111th meridian to the Colorado r.; they further agreed, etc., that the whole of the line should be declared fully established, etc., and the field-work concluded, whenever each should notify the other that certain topographical work then in progress had been completed by Lieutenant Michler and Señor Jimenez; whereupon, having no further business, the commission adjourned to meet in Washington, D. C., Apr. 1st, 1856. The required notifications were exchanged Oct. 15th and Dec. 18th, 1855. The work had been done, and subsequent proceedings were only in the nature of formalities between the two governments. My authority for the facts embodied in this note is of course the U. S. and M. B. S. Report unless otherwise stated. I have been led into this sketch of affairs of 40 years ago, partly by their intrinsic interest, but mainly because they show the state of things at a period of time equidistant between Pike's and the present day.
[II'-1] The difficulty of trailing Pike in Mexico is twofold. His notes, hasty and stealthy under the circumstances, are necessarily meager, and rather excite than satisfy our curiosity to know more. Worse than this, all the maps of Mexico are poor. I have probably before me the best maps that exist; they do not compare with those we have used for most parts of Pike's route. The most helpful one I have found is that in Senate Misc. Doc. No. 26, 30th Cong., 1st Sess., accompanying a Memoir of a Tour to Northern Mexico, connected with Col. Doniphan's Expedition, in 1846 and 1847, by A. Wislizenus, M. D., Washington, Tippin and Streeper, 1848, 8vo, pp. 141. The author was a German scientist, interested in geography, geology, and botany. He went over much of the identical route which Pike traveled,—as far as Parras, near Saltillo,—and has left a luminous itinerary, for the publication of which we are indebted to the good sense of Thomas H. Benton. This I shall draw heavily upon, and wish to make my grateful compliments to its author in the beginning of this route.