Archibald Campbell, the commissioner; one by Gen. J. G. Parke, chief astronomer and surveyor; one by G. Clinton Gardner, assistant astronomer and surveyor, and one by J. S. Harris, general assistant. For this description of the missing manuscript I am indebted to Mr. William J. Warren, Bureau of Engineers, War Department. When Captain Wheeler was preparing his account of this survey he made an unsuccessful search for this missing report. He says:1

I have been unable to trace the manuscript of the final report, including that of the chief astronomer and the specialists, which it is believed was made. According to the Journal of the Senate of February 9, 1871, this report was called for by the Senate, but a search of the Senate records and also those of the State Department, made at my request by Mr. Dwight, librarian of the State Department, remained unavailing on June 15, 1887. Mr. William J. Warren, secretary of the commissioner [and] now chief clerk [in the office] of the [Chief of] Engineer[s] [War] Department, recollects to have seen the manuscript of this report at the office of the Northern Boundary [Survey], established in 1873, as does also Maj. J. F. Gregory, Corps of Engineers, a member of that commission, but it could not be found by Mr. Dwight in the records transmitted at the close of the latter survey to the State Department. The search above mentioned I have now repeated and with like result. The manuscript has not been found.

The existence of the manuscript is attested by Mr. Warren, who gave me the description above written. The call for it made by the Senate in 1871 is set forth in the following extract from the Senate Journal of February 9, 1871, page 254:

Mr. Howard [Jacob M., of Michigan] submitted the following resolution, which was considered by unanimous consent, and agreed to:

'Resolved, That the President be respectfully requested, if not incompatible with the public interests, to transmit to the Senate copies of the final report, and the accompanying documents, of the commissioner on the part of the United States to carry into effect the first article of the treaty with Great Britain of June 15, 1846."

An examination of the records in the office of the Secretary of the Senate reveals no other entry concerning it, from which it is concluded that it was never sent. Similarly an examination of the records in the Index Bureau of the State Department shows the call, but no action is indorsed thereon, thus corroborating the belief that it was not sent.

When the Northern Boundary Commission was created, in 1872, Mr. Archibald Campbell was appointed United States commissioner of that survey also. He found at the outset that it was desirable to have for reference the records of the Northwestern Boundary Survey, and accordingly wrote to the State Department asking permission to withdraw those records for temporary use.

The following is a copy of his letter, which is now on file in the Index Bureau of the State Department:

U. S. NORTHERN BOUNDARY COMMISSION,
Washington, D. C., June 27, 1872.

SIR: In preparing for the duties of the boundary commission it would be of the greatest assistance to have the use of the records, notebooks, and other papers of

1 G. M. Wheeler, U. S. Geog. Surv. W. One Hundredth Mer. 4°. Washington, 1889, vol. 1, p. 617.

the Northwest Boundary Commission, deposited by me in the Department at the close of the work in October, 1869.

I have therefore the honor to request that you allow me to withdraw these records and papers temporarily. Before leaving for the field they will be returned to the Department.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL, Commissioner, Northern Boundary Survey.

Hon. CHAS. HALE,

Acting Secretary of State.

Upon that letter is indorsed: "Papers, etc., herein referred to sent to Mr. Campbell 27th June."

A search of the records of the Index Bureau of the State Department fails to reveal any other entry touching these papers. If they were returned no record was made of such return. It is certain that these papers were in the possession of the Northern Boundary Commission in 1872. Beyond that there is no trace. It would therefore be natural to look for them among the papers of the Northern Boundary Commission, which were sent to the State Department on June 30, 1876. But a search among these papers made by me in March, 1900, was unsuccessful. The missing manuscript was not found.

Prof. C. L. Doolittle, now at the Flower Observatory at Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, was connected with the Northern Boundary Survey. In response to an inquiry as to whether he had any information touching the report desired, he writes, among other things, under date of March 12, 1900:

My connection with the northern boundary began after active operations had been going on for a year. We then had our office at Detroit. After field operations were completed we removed to Washington. It is not a great exaggeration to say that I saw every scrap of paper to be found in the Detroit office. At all events, this report was not to be found there. I remember hearing such a report spoken of, but it was then said to be stored away with other Government archives at Washington.

(e) Archibald Campbell, the commissioner, died in the city of Washington July 27, 1887. To his son, Charles Campbell, now an employee in the Department of State, I am indebted for information as to the survey. I have also conferred with Gen. J. G. Parke, Corps of Engineers, U. S. A. (retired), who was chief astronomer and surveyor of the Northwestern Boundary Survey Commission, and with Mr. William J. Warren, chief clerk in the office of the Chief of Engineers, U. S. A., who was secretary of the commission. To both of these gentlemen, and especially to the latter, I am indebted for information used in preparing this account. Mr. G. Clinton Gardner, the assistant astronomer and surveyor from 1857 to 1868, is now a civil engineer in Peru, South America, while Mr. Joseph S. Harris, general assistant Northwest Boundary Survey from 1857 to 1864, is now president of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad. To both of these gentlemen I am indebted for letters relating to the boundary and its survey. I have

also talked on this subject with Mr. J. V. Wurdemann, now employed in the Library of Congress, who participated in the survey and with Dr. Theodore Gill, who prepared a report on the fishes collected by the survey. To the courtesy of these gentlemen as also to that of Prof. C. L. Doolittle, to the Smithsonian Institution, to the Coast Survey, and to the General Land Office I am indebted for bits of information used in preparing this report.

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE LINE.

The present boundary line between British Columbia on the north and Washington, Idaho, and Montana on the south was established in 1846. Prior to that date the boundary was in dispute between the United States and Great Britain and the Oregon question was a burning one. Great Britain claimed as far south as forty-two degrees north latitude, the northern limit of California to-day. The United States claimed as far north as 54° 40', the present southern boundary of Alaska. The slogan of the day was "Fifty-four forty or fight." But there was no fight and no fifty-four forty. A treaty was arranged by which the disputed tract was divided between the claimants. The boundary line adopted was the present line along the forty-ninth parellel from the summit of the Rocky Mountains to the middle of the channel between Vancouver Island and the continent and thence southward along the main channel and Juan de Fuca Strait to the Pacific. The diplomatic agents who drew this treaty were, on the part of the United States, James Buchanan, then Secretary of State, and on the part of Great Britain, the then British minister, Richard Pakenham. The treaty was signed at Washington June 15, 1846, ratifications exchanged at London July 17, and proclaimed August 5, 1846.1

The first article of the treaty describes the boundary in the following words:

From the point on the 49th parallel of north latitude, where the boundary laid down in existing treaties and conventions between the United States and Great Britain terminates, the line of boundary between the Territories of the United States and those of Her Britannic Majesty shall be continued westward along the said 49th parallel of north latitude, to the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island and thence southerly through the middle of the said channel, and of Fuca's [Juan de Fuca] Straits, to the Pacific Ocean.

HISTORY OF THE SURVEY.

On August 11, 1856, almost exactly ten years after the proclaiming of the treaty of limits, which for brevity may be called the BuchananPakenham treaty, Congress passed an act to carry its first article into effect. This act provided for the appointment of a commissioner and a chief astronomer and surveyor on the part of the United States to unite

1 Stat. L., vol. 9, pp. 869-870; vol. 11, p. 42.

Iwith similar officers to be appointed by Great Britain to survey the boundary and mark it with monuments. It also provided for the appointment of an assistant astronomer and surveyor, a secretary, and a clerk; it appropriated $11,000 for the annual salary of these five officers, and $60,000 for provisions, transportation, and contingencies; it restricted the work to the northern boundary of Washington, which then extended from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific; and finally it authorized the President to direct the employment of such officers, assistants, and vessels of the Coast Survey as he might deem necessary or useful.

Under this law Mr. Archibald Campbell was appointed commissioner on February 14, 1857, and on the same day Lieut. (now Gen.) John G. Parke, Corps of Engineers, U. S. A., was appointed chief astronomer and surveyor,1 each at a salary of $3,000 per annum. Two weeks later, viz, February 28, 1857, Mr. G. Clinton Gardner was appointed assistant astronomer and surveyor, and on April 5 entered upon his duties. On April 9 Mr. William J. Warren (now chief clerk Office of Chief of Engineers, U. S. A.) was appointed secretary, and on March 6 Mr. John J. Major was appointed clerk to the commissioner. Mr. Campbell remained commissioner to the end in 1869. On the outbreak of the civil war, in the spring of 1861, General Parke left the work and never returned to it. Messrs. Gardner and Warren served with the commission until December 31, 1868, and perhaps a little later. Mr. Major resigned December 9, 1864.

Of the other principal employees, Mr. Joseph S. Harris, now president of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, is recorded as assistant surgeon and naturalist March 27, 1857, to March 31, 1864, when he left the survey to engage in private business. Francis Herbst and Henry Custer served as topographers, the former about two years from April 16, 1857, till March 31, 1859, the latter about seven years from April 16, 1857, till June 30, 1864. Mr. J. Nevine King served as quartermaster and commissary from May 21, 1857, to January 15, 1861; Mr. George Gibbs as geologist and interpreter from June 22, 1857, till May 31, 1862, and Mr. R. V. Peabody as guide from August 1, 1857, to January 15, 1861. Dr. C. B. R. Kennerly served as surgeon and naturalist from March 22, 1857, till his death in 1861.

On February 28, 1857, Mr. Campbell received his instructions from the Secretary of State, dated February 25, whereupon, he says, "I proceeded at once to collect all such information within my reach which might contribute to a proper understanding of the meaning of the language of the treaty, and in the execution of the work intrusted to me. Having arranged with Professor Bache, Superintendent of the Coast Survey, for the use of the surveying steamer Active and the brig

3

1 House Ex. Doc. No. 86, Fortieth Congress, Third session, p. 100.
House Ex. Doc. No. 86, Fortieth Congress, Third session, p. 23.
3 Senate Ex. Doc., No. 29, Fortieth Congress, second session, p. 8.

Fauntleroy, with the officers and assistants attached,' Mr. Campbell sailed from New York April 20 and reached San Francisco via the Isthmus of Panama on May 15. On June 17 the party sailed on the Active for Victoria, where they arrived five days later and learned that the first British commissioner, Capt. James Charles Prevost, R. N., commanding H. B. M. S. Satellite, had arrived at Esquimalt ten days before. The second British commissioner was Capt. George Henry Richards, R. N., whose ordinary duties were those of chief astronomer and surveyor, he being empowered to act as commissioner only in the event of the death of Captain Prevost. Captain Richards, commanding the British steamer Plumper, left England at the close of March, 1857, for Victoria. By an accident to the Plumper's machinery he was delayed at Rio de Janeiro for some time and did not reach Victoria till November, 1857. The powers of these first and second British commissioners did not extend to the whole line, but only to the water boundary. "So much of the boundary between her Majesty's possessions in North America and the territories of the United States as is comprised between the continent of America and Vancouver's Island." Such is the language of the instructions to Captain Prevost. The British and American commissioners held their first meeting on Saturday, June 27, 1857, on board the Satellite in Esquimalt harbor. The respective commissions of themselves and assistants were exhibited, read, and found in due form. A second meeting was held three weeks later in Nanaimo harbor on board the Satellite. Captain Richards not yet having arrived, it was decided that nothing further could be done with the water-boundary question.

Accordingly the American party proceeded to the vicinity of the forty-ninth parallel at Point Roberts on the mainland and began operations on the land boundary. It was not till the summer of the next year, 1858, that the British commissioner for surveying the land boundary, Col. J. S. Hawkins, Royal Engineers, arrived from England. The American parties worked, therefore, alone during the fall and winter of 1857 and spring of 1858. "Before the spring [of 1858] four astronomical points on the 49th parallel were determined, and the country thoroughly reconnoitered in the vicinity of the parallel, for a considerable distance eastward."2

After the arrival of Colonel Hawkins a joint meeting of the commission was held to arrange a plan of field operations for surveying and marking the line. The outcome of that meeting is set forth in the following agreement:"

After discussing plans for determining and marking the line as far eastward as the Cascade Mountains, it was concluded to be inexpedient at the present time, in con

1 From Coast Survey Report for 1857, p. 116, we learn that, "At request of State Department," steamer Active and party, in charge of Lieut. Commander Richard M. Cuyler, U. S. N., were placed at disposal of Archibald Campbell, esq., commissioner of the Northwestern Boundary Survey. 2 House Ex. Doc. No. 86, Fortieth Congress, Third session, p. 95.