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Show 130 the people, would soon more than repay the original outlay, and change this conservative, inert Territory into a thriving rival of her less- favored neighbors. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, W. L. CARPENTER, First Lieutenant Xinth Infantry. Lieut. GEO. M. WHEELER, Corps of Engineers, in charge. APPENDIX D. EXECUTIVE REPORT OF LIEUTENANT R. BIRNIE, JR., THIRTEENTH UNITED STATES INFANTRY, ON THE OPERATIONS OF PARTY NO. 2, CALIFORNIA SECTIOK, FIELD-SEASON OF 1875. UNITED STATES ENGINEER- OFFICE, GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS WEST OF ONE HUNDREDTH MERIDIAN, Washington, D. C, May 1, 1876. SIR : I have the honor to submit herewith report of operations of party No. 2, California section, for the field- season of 1875. The country to he surveyed by the t> arty comprised the eastern portion of atlas- sheet 65, of which Owen's Lake, California, forms nearly the central figure. The main topographical features of this eastern portion, lying approximately between longitude 116° 30' and 11*° 15' west from Greenwich and north latitude 35° 35' and 37° 20', proved exceedingly simple. Here was found most markedly a type of that large section of country lying east of the Sierras, in Navadaand California, where the general trend of the mountain- ranges is very nearly parallel to the Sierras, and, so far as our area extended, uniformly decreasing in altitude to the eastward, and becoming more barren and sterile as they decrease in height, seeming to endeavor to assimilate themselves to the alkaline sandy and desert valleys that separate them. It is also to be observed that these valleys decrease in altitude with the ranges, that is to say, considering the main divisions of ranges and valleys. First the Owens River Valley separates the Sierras from the Inyo range; and second, considering the Argus as but the southern extension of the Inyo range, we find this separated from the Panamint rauge by the Salinas and Panamint Valleys, these valleys being separated by an east and west spur that tends to connect the Panamint aud Inyo ranges; third, Death Valley separates the Panamint range from the Amargosa on the east. The order of the altitude of the ranges has been found as stated, and of the valleys, Owens River is the most elevated, Salinas and Panamint are next, and Death Valley the lowest, being belojv the level of the sea. Eastward of the Amargosa range is the valley of the Amargosa River or the Amargosa Desert, which rising a thousand feet or more above the level of Death Valley, broke the uniformity heretofore observed and, moreover, formed the limit of our survey to the eastward. On the 23d of June, 1875, the party left your rendezvous camp near Los Angeles, Cal., composed as follows: Louis Nell, chief topographer ; F. Brockdorff aud W. S. Waters, recorders; Benjamin P. French aud Lenardo Aguilar, packers; Frank Reyer, cook; E. S. Stevens, private Company G, Twelfth Infantry, and myself as ex- officer and field-astronomer. After two days'march the couk was discharged, and Andrew Hoos employed in his stead. At Los Angeles we were distant about 120 miles from Pilot Knob, a mountain- peak situated nearly on the southern line of our area. Up to this point, however, there was to be traversed the main road from Los Angeles to Panamint, Cal., much traveled before the establishment of the Southern Pacific Railroad terminus at Caliente, when a road from that point to Panamint aud the surrounding country offered better facilities for the receiving of freight from Sau Francisco. The route of the pary was along the road first mentioned, following nearly the line of the Southern Pacific Railroad as far as Spadra, Cal., about 30 miles from Los Angeles, aud then passing through Cucainanga. We were detained at Martin's, Cajon Pass, until July 2, awaiting the return of Mr. Nell, who, with a small party, left us at Lytle Creek, June 29, to make the ascent of and the necessary observations upon San Antonio Peak. From Martin's, through the Cajon Pass, the road crossing the divide a few miles east of the crossing of the proposed Los Angeles and Independence Railroad into the Mohave Desert, we crossed the Mohave River at Huntington's, and again near the cottonwoods, after it has made it* reinaikable turn to the eastward. Its bed here is dry nioM; of the year, and the prevailing west and southwest winds, blowing uniformly from noon to midnight in the Rummer season, pile up ridges of the sand athwart its course, and one wonders that its waters could flow hero at all, rather than that the volume of water seen 20 miles higher |