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Show 511 " THE SPECIAL MASTER: I do not think it makes the slightest difference how he happened to be assigned. I assume any officer of the United States Army in pursuance of his duty will testify to the facts as he understands them. I don't think it makes the slightest difference how he came into the case. " MR. BLACKMAR: Except for this reason, that the army engineers are the only engineers in the United States who study rivers from the standpoint of navigation. " THE SPECIAL MASTER: You can bring those things out in qualifying the witness. I do not think it makes any difference how he came into the case. " I assume an army engineer will testify to the facts as he sees them." R. 1274- 1275. " BY MR. FARMSSORTH: " Q. Now, Colonel Dont, with the matters in mind to which you have just referred in your examination, you did endeavor in your journeys over these rivers to investigate, observe and make a note of impediments to navigation, conditions that might tend to prove the difficulties that one would encounter in navigating the rivers, and all such conditions as band bars and rapids and shallow water and shifting channels and all of those other things that might embarrass one in navigating this stream; isn't that true? " A. Only in so far as such impediments might show the |