The Sun.
London, England, 1853-05-25 00:00:00

[ PRICE OD.

TEE UNITED STATES.

NEW YORK, TUESDAY, MAY 10.
The American journals which go out by the• Cunard
steamer from Boston to-morrow are filled with the de-
tails of the late horrible calamity which occurred on the
New York and Newhaven Railroad at the latter part of
last week. Although in sonic instances more lite may
have been sacrificed, yet this is the-most painful acci-
dent of the kind that has ever
,occurred in America,
since it was the result of the most sheer carelessness,
which seems to have removed the accident beyond the
scope of what we ordinarily embrace under the title of
accidents and providential misfortunes. The impression
now is that the engineer, and perhaps the conductor,
will be brought to justice and punished to the full extent
of the law. No accident has for a long time thrown •
such a gloom over the country, and there is a feeling of
just indignation everywhere aroused ; but there is every
reason to suppose that it will all disappear before, in the
regular course of justice, the perpetrators of this crime
can be tried.

The landing of 000 slaves from the clipper Lady Suffolk
on the coast of Cuba, in broad daylight, and under the
open or implied sanction of the government of the island,
shows that neither the Governor-General nor the Cabinet
of Madrid are disposed to regard the stipulations of trea-
ties, the rights of humanity, or the public sentiment of
the world.
Last Sunday the Pacific Exploring Expedition, under
the command of Commodore Ringgold, sailed from this
port for Norfolk, where all the vessels rendezvous before
their departure for the scene of their destination. The
expedition consists of the sloop Vincennes, the steamer
John Hancock, and the Porpoise, the Fennimore
Cooper, and the John. P. Kennedy. Little is yet
known beyond the general object of this expedition, but
I shall be enabled in a few days to give them detailed
information on the subject. Although the expedition
is not large, and carries but few guns, and on the very
face of it proclaims all its purposes to bo pacific, yet it
requires no great keenness of foresight to perceive that
it is but a pioneer to our political progress ; nor will
many years be likely to pass before the information
which this expedition will furnish to the Govern-
ment will be put to material and practical use. It
will affect to some extent the policy of the United
States, and it cannot be otherwise. The expedition
is, however, most efficiently provided with the ma-
terials for scientific and nautical exploration. Pro-
bably no expedition of the kind has been sent out by
this country better provided with the means of success.
Although most of the officers are young men, yet they
have been chosen for this service solely from their pecu-
liar qualifications, and I look upon the expedition as one
of considerable importance to the world.
As no such account as your readers would be inte-
rested in has yet appeared of the running of the bound-
ary line of our new territories acquired from Mexico, I
send you the following :
Mr. Bartlett left New York in August, 1850, as com-
missioner on the part of the United States, to survey
the boundary between the United States and the Re-
public of Mexico, agreeably to the treaty made on the
conclusion of the late war. This boundary commences
at the mouth of the Rio Grande or Bravo del Norte,
where it empties itself into the Gulf of Mexico, fol-
lowing that river up to the southern boundary of
New Mexico in latitude 32 deg. 22 min.—thence to
the river Gila, which it follows down to its junc-
tion with the Colorado of the West, and thence in a
direct line to the Pacific, at a point south of San Diego,
making with the sinuosities of the river a boundary of
from 2,500 to 3,000 miles. This is probably the longest
boundary in the world between two nations which
has ever been scientifically surveyed. It was com-
menced on the Pacific in May 1849 ; the initial
points were determined, and the line was traced to
the River Colorado. The engineers, finding it im-
practicable to continue the survey eastward, ad-
journed to meet at El Paso del Norte, on the Rio
Bravo, and thence work both ways to the Pacific
and the Atlantic, having four parties operating at the
same time. After a delay of nine months the United
States and the Mexican Commissioners met at the point
referred to, resumed work, and, before the close of 1852,
this vast line of boundary had all been surveyed, with
the exception of 300 or 400 miles, its topography taken,
and an extensive series of astronomical, magnetic, and
meteorological observations made from ocean to ocean.
The work was suspended a few months since, but is now
about to be resumed. Two or more parties are about to
be sent out, and it is expected that in six months the
whole will be finished. '

As the entire region to be traversed was a new and
unexplored field, and unknown, except by the slight re-
connoissance made by the officers attached to General
Kearney's brigade during its march to California in 1816-
47, a fine opportunity was presented for scientific re-
search. Mr. Bartlett accordingly took with him a corps
of naturalists, who have made extensive collections,
particularly in botany and zoology. Though the region
consists in a great measure of broad deserts, and is
comparatively barren in trees, it presents a pecu-
liar vegetation, unlike the deserts of Northern Africa
or Arabia. There is no grass except in the immediate
vicinity of watercourses, and in patches on the elevated
plateaux in the centre of the continent. }orests, too,
do not exist. The wooded country disappears
entirely after leaving the confines of the States
bordering on the Mississippi ; nor does it reappear
except on the lofty mountains or in the higher
latitudes. But nature is not inactive, even though
there may be no forests and but a stinted shrubbery.
Strange families of plants flourish in abundance, such
as are not found in other parts of the globe. That
singular family of plants, known as the cactus, here
flourishes in perfection, and presents a great variety.
The most remarkable of them is the pitahaya, or giant
cactus, which rises up from the desert or from crevices
of rocks on the mountain side to the height of from 40
to 50 feet, sometimes in a single shoot, but generally
with branches like candelabra. This great cactus is
from one foot to three feet in diameter, and is covered
with thorns. Its flower is said to be beautiful and its
fruit delicious. But the cacti are not the only vegetable
productions of this region. The mountain passes or
defiles, where there is more moisture, abound in flowers,
varied and of brilliant hues.
The zoology is as peculiar as the vegetable kingdom.
There are but few of the large mammalia, the grizzly
bear, wolf, and deer being the most abundant, the for-
mer only in the mountains ; but among the lower orders,
particularly reptiles, the variety and number are great.
In serpents alone more than 50 new species have been
discovered and specimens received —in fact, it may be
•

asserted that the naturalists of this commission have
added more to that department of zoology termed
herpetology than any scientific corps which ever en-
tered the field for a similar purpose. So in the fishes of
the inland waters, about which we possessed little
knowledge. The commission has sent home specimens
of fishes from every lake and stream between the Gulf
of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean, the course of which
is near the boundary line. These too, like the
reptiles and lesser manunalia, consist Of new and unde-
. scribed species. The various specimens alluded to were
transported with much difficulty, sometimes for hun-
' dreds of miles, on the backs of mules to the seacoast,
and thence to 'Washington, where they are deposited in
the cabinet of the Smithsonian Institution. Here two of
the most skilful and practical zoologists, Professors
Baird and Girard, are now engaged in describing them.
The ethnology of the region in question is another im-
portant branch of science to which the commission has
devoted its attention. Mr. Bartlett has taken charge
of this department himself; and collected much inte-
resting matter relating to the aboriginal tribes which
occupy the States of Texas, New Mexico, Eutaw, Cali-
fornia, and the Mexican States of Sonora and Chihuahua.
About many of these tribes little was previously known.
Mr. Bartlett has collected twenty-five vocabularies
of as many different tribes of Indians of these interior
portions of the continent, together with characteristic
portraits of each, and a variety of sketches illustrating
their manners and customs. It becomes more important
every year that we should collect all the information
possible about our Indian tribes, as they are fast disap-
pearing before the march of the white man. A few
years since we easily got rid of them by sending them
west, where there seemed no limit to their hunting
grounds ' • but now civilisation and conquest are ex-
tending back from the shores of the Pacific, and the
poor Indian is driven to those inhospitable and desert
regions where he cannot gain a subsistence except
by plunder. Two of the most numerous and widely-
extended tribes, the Camanchees and the Apaches, are
at war both with the Americans and the Mexicans.
Neither make any effort to raise their own means of sub-
sistence, but live by plundering the Americans and the
Mexicans alternately. But the Californian tribes are
undergoing a worse persecution from the gold-seekers
than was ever inflicted on any of the Indian tribes of
which I have knowledge. We have sent agents out to
protect them, but nought avails against the grasping
and avaricious gold-hunter. He sets the law at defiance,
forces the defenceless Indian to work in his mine until,
from the season, his labour is no longer profitable, when
he drives him away, without food or clothing, to perish,
or shoots him down if he attempts to obtain food by
stealth.
Mr. Bartlett has, in the course of his journey-
ings fro ocean to ocean, explored the two northern
states of Mexico, Chilhuahua and Sonora, about
which so little is known. These States were ex-
plored by the Spaniards as early as 1540, and again
in 1585 ; but it was not until about the year 1600
that they first planted their missionary establishments
there. There has been a great admixture of races here
as well as in New Mexico, so that but little pure Spaiftnhtie
ieshir.
blood remains. The result of this admixture is said to
U e
Spaniardba d; forand thethe
Indian,mix ed race
withouthas theall virtuest e vices f
eo
They have, therefore, not advanced or kept pace in civi-
lisation with their Anglo-Saxon neighbours, but, on the
e
contrary, have retrograded. Our ann xatiOnists some-
times turn their eyes to the Mexican States, but it is a
question whether such a population would not be a
great injury to us, and whether it would not share the
fate of our aboriginal tribes—extermination.
Some antiquities of great interest were examined by
in the
banks of the rivers
the Gil
aand United
Salinas,
aSI
itnaatz Commission
the State of Chihuahua, which
will, when made known, attract
machholders
of
I enclose you the protest of m h
the
original Garay grant against the Mexican Govern-
.