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duties; and I owe it to them also to state that, having left Washington the spring previous, with orders to return from Santa Fe as soon as practicable after my exploration of the Fort Smith route, I consequently carne hither unprovided with the proper appliances necessary for the most successful exhibition of their skill and labor. This circumstance will explain, the unfit character, in many instances, of the paper on which the sketches have been drawn, and which it required, even such as it is, the ransacking of almost every store in the place to sufficiently supply. But these gentlemen had learned what a practical acquaintance with life, in its more destitute forms, will always develop a ready resort to, and application of, expedients; and this readiness was not without its value, under the destitution referred to.

I also submit an herbarium of plants, which I think will not be without interest, in its relation to the botanical character of the country passed through. For this collection I am indebted, upon my solicitation, to Assistant Surgeon John F. Hammond, who is entitled to all the credit for the zeal, industry, and labor which this department of research exhibits.

I also forward a box of minerals, the latter marked correspondingly with the numbers to be found on the margin of the schedule already referred to, as designated " D" in the appendix. A duplicate of the schedule will also be found in the box containing the minerals. These specimens, I trust, will not be without their value to the critical eye of a competent mineralogist and geologist, to whom I would be glad to have them referred. I would also respectfully request that a reference be made of the plants to an accomplished botanist, for his judgment and expression as to their true character, novelty, &c. It is to be regretted, however, that, in the absence of a barometer, or other proper instrument to determine the atmospheric elevation of the localities of the plants, their normal condition in respect to climate can only be approximately arrived at, under the hypothetical elevation assumed. The same want of precision, however, does riot exist in respect to the position of their localities in reference to the eath's surface, it being stated absolutely in latitude and longitude.

The comparative vocabulary of the languages of the different Peublo Indians in New Mexico, arid of the wild tribes inhabiting its confines, although by no means complete, will not, I trust, be without its value in the investigations that are being made in our country in regard to the ethnological condition of the various tribes which inhabit our domain. I think, among inferences which may be drawn, the singular, and as I believe the hitherto unknown, certainly unpublished, fact is evolved, that, among the 10,000 (estimated) Peublo Indians who inhabit New Mexico, as many as six distinct dialects obtain, no one showing anything more than the faintest, if any, indications of a cognate origin with the other. The vocabulary as distinctly shows the kindred character of the languages of the Navajos and of the Ticorillas branch of the Apache.

Gregg, in his "Commerce of the Prairies," vol. 1, p. 269, says: " There are but three or four different Ianguages spoken anion them, (he is speaking of the Peublos of New Mexico,) and these, indeed, may be distinctly allied to each other." The English author Ruxton, in his "Mexico and the Rocky Mountains," page 194, remarks: "The Indians of northern Mexico, including the Peublos, belong to the same family--the Apache; from which branch the Navajos, Apaches, Coyoteros, Mescaleros, Megeris, Yubipias, Marecopas, Cherecaquis, Chemegerabas, Yurmarjars, (the last two tribes of the Moqui,) and the Nijoras, a small tribe on the Gila. All these speak dialects of the same language, more or less approximating to the Apache, and of all of which the idiomatic structure is tire same. They