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Show 80 APPENDIX A. EXECUTIVE AND DESCRIPTIVE REPORT OF LIEUTENANT WILLIAM L. MARSHALL, CORPS OF ENGINEERS, ON THE OPERATIONS OF PARTY NO. 1, COLORADO SECTION, FIELD-SEASON OF 1875. UNITED STATES ENGINEER OFFICE, GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS WEST OF THE 100TH MERIDIAN, Washington, D. C, April 15,1876. SIR : I have the honor to submit the following executive report of the operations of party No. 1, Colorado section of the expedition for geographical surveys west of the one hundredth meridian, during the past field- season, together with a brief description of the topography and resources of the region surveyed and profiles of present and prospective routes of communications within this area. PART L- EXECUTIVE REPORT. The Colorado section of the expedition consisting of the parties under the command of Lieut. W. L. Carpenter, Ninth United States Infantry, C. C. Morrison, Sixth Cavalry, and myself, was organized at South Pueblo, Colo., in the early part of June, 1875, and the area proposed by you for survey subdivided among the three parties as follows: To Lieutenant Carpenter was assigned the completion of the triangulation partially measured the previous year along the Spanish and Raton ranges, south of the latitude of Fort Qarland and north of Santa Fe", with certain portions of atlas- sheets 69i and 62c whioh had not been sufficiently examined the previous season, with directions to rigidly correct by triangulation the bases measured under your direction in 1874, at Trinidad. Fort Union, Las Vegas, and Santa F6, and to make careful barometric profiles of all present or prospective routes across the southern extension of the Sangre de Cristo range between Fort Garland and Santa Fe". In addition to the executive charge of the party, Lieutenant Carpenter was assigned as raturalist to this party, and directed also by your instructions to make such paleontological collections in the field discovered by Prof. E. D. Cope in 1874, in the San Juan basin, as opportunity and time would admit. Lieut. C. C. Morrison, in accordance with your recommendations, was instructed to complete the survey of such portions of the San Juan range south of the headwaters of the Conejos as were left incomplete the preceding year; to seek for a wagon- route from the valley of the Rio Chama near Tierra Amarilia, via the Washington Pass and the headwaters of the Bonito, to the west, and to complete the survey of the atlas-sheets 69c, 766,77a, 77b, and 78a, already partly surveyed. This programme necessitated long and rapid marches over areas already surveyed, to such isolated and in many cases almost inaccessible tracts which had been passed by in former years by parties of the survey on account of their rough character and the lack of water and grass for their animals. I respectfully refer to the reports of those officers, who do not report through me, for information as to the detailed manner in which those general instructions were carried out. To each of the above parties were assigned one field- astronomer, one topographer, one larometric observer and recorder, one aneroid and odometer recorder, and the necessary number of packers and cooks. Each were provided with one sextant and artificial horizon, one triangulation- instrn-ment reading to 10" of arc by Vernier, one topographers transit reading by Vernier to V of arc, one odometer- vehicle and three odometers to be used in connection with the topographer's transit and the aneroid in meandering and profiling the roads, hand- compasses for meandering unimportant drainage- lines, two sets psychrometers, two cistern-barometers, two aneroids and pocket- thermometers for the use of such persons as require them, and with the necessary ruled and headed blank- books and forms for properly recording their observations; printed instructions as to the use of books and instruments and as to the methods oLsurvey to be followed, accompanying them. This organization of parties having been effected and the necessary arrangements made for breaking up the depot which had been established at this point the preceding season, the parties took the field in the following order: Lieutenant Carpenter's party on June 9,1875; Lieutenant Morrison's, June 12, and my own on June 15,1875. The organization of the party under my immediate charge was as follows: First Lieut. W. L. Marshall, Corps of Engineers, executive officer and field- astronomer; Assistant Engiueer J. C. Spiller, topographer; Mr. George M. Dunn, meteorological observer; First- class Private Wm. Looram, Company D, Sattalion of Engineers, aneroid and odometer recorder; D. Y. Hears, chief packer; A. R. Mitchell and Harry Gregg, packers; Thomas Norman and Allen Smith, cooks, or in all nine men. From Pueblo the party proceeded up the Arkansas River to Oil Creek, thence by way of the Twin Creek Pass to Tarryall Creek, where a small area left unsurveyed in 1873 by my party was filled out and the meander of Tarryall Creek continued until near the point it was left by Mr. Young's meander in 1873. Having completed this, the party |
