The other monumenting party, consisting of 5 men and 5 horses, was organized at Midway, British Columbia, on May 10. This party replaced the original boundary cairns between Midway and the Similkameen River with aluminum-bronze monuments. They reached the Similkameen on September 11 at the same time the topographic party had completed its work and disbanded. They took over the outfit and pack train of the topographic party and moved the combined outfit over roads and trails by the way of Princeton and Hope, British Columbia, and thence down the Fraser Valley and across to Blaine, Washington, where the party was merged with the western trail- and vista-cutting party already described as working between Monument 21 and Semiahmoo Bay.

TRIANGULATION PARTY

A party of 5 men, provided with 8 horses, was organized at Waneta, British Columbia, on May 1 for the purpose of completing the triangulation scheme from the Kootenai River at Porthill, Idaho, to a junction with the work of the United States parties at stations "Buck" and "Horn", near the eastern crossing of the Kettle River. This party completed its work and disbanded on August 21.

The personnel of the Canadian parties was: Chief of party, J. J. McArthur, D. L. S.; assistant in charge of triangulation, Howell Bigger, D. L. S.; assistant in charge of line projection, Noel J. Ogilvie, D. L. S.; assistant in charge of topography, S. S. McDiarmid, D. L. S.; other assistants, J. M. Sheppard, E. T. de Coeli, Stanley Everall, J. W. McArthur; and from 40 to 50 hands.

UNITED STATES PARTIES

The United States forces engaged in field work in 1905 were, as in the previous seasons, divided into two main parties, one under the direction of the chief astronomer and one under the chief topographer. These in turn were divided into various subparties.

ASTRONOMIC PARTY

The chief astronomer's party was divided into a triangulation subparty and a monumenting subparty, both employed on the section of the boundary from the Kootenai River at Porthill, Idaho, to the summit of the Rocky Mountains. In addition thereto, the chief astronomer maintained a magnetic party which during the season made observations along the boundary from Point Roberts to Phillipps Creek east of Gateway, Montana. This work, not being entirely germane to the resurvey and demarcation of the boundary, is not herein described. 13

TRIANGULATION SUBPARTY

The triangulation subparty gathered at Gateway, Montana, about the middle of May. Their first objective was to connect the boundary monuments in the vicinity of Gateway, between Phillipps Creek on the east and Purcell summit on the west, with the triangulation scheme. They had intended to continue westward tying in monuments to the triangulation scheme, but the snow was still too

13 The results of the work are to be found in the records of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey.

deep on the mountains to permit horses to cross the high summits and further work was postponed until the observations in the vicinity of Gateway had been completed. In addition to doing triangulation, the party set 4 monuments in the vicinity to fill in a gap left in the monumenting of the previous autumn.

Upon the completion of the work on June 10 at Gateway, the party moved by railroad to Belton, Montana, in order to approach the Rocky Mountains by the way of the Flathead Valley. At Belton the necessary outfitting and recruiting were done for the formation of a monumenting subparty, and on June 14 the party set out with a four-horse wagonload of supplies for the boundary. Reuter's ranch, where the horses and outfit of the triangulation party of 1904 had been cared for during the winter, was reached on the 15th. Here the camp outfit was overhauled and the party organization completed. The two parties then proceeded up the river and established a base camp 4 miles south of the boundary, from which both parties might operate.

Notwithstanding the probability of snowstorms occuring in these altitudes as late as July, and the difficulty of crossing the winter's snow still remaining, the experience of the triangulation party of 1904 with smoke, in the latter part of the season, influenced the choice of the early part of the season as being the more favorable to success.

The triangulation subparty first moved west of the Flathead and rebuilt the signals on stations "Canada" and "Tuchuck", then crossed to the east side and occupied station "North Divide", where it was delayed for some time by snow and hailstorms. Returning west, station "Hefty" was occupied and the alinement of a monument site nearby was checked. This done, the party recrossed to the east side of the Flathead and occupied stations "Kishenehn", "South Divide", Monument 272 on the summit of the Rocky Mountains, and "Kintla", completing the program as planned. The last station in this list, "Kintla", is the loftiest and most difficult to climb of the boundary stations in the Rocky Mountains, being 9,928 feet in elevation and extremely steep. Six days were spent in reaching the station and making the observations.

Upon the completion of the Rocky Mountain observations, the party moved westward to Gateway, stopping on the way to reoccupy stations "Tuchuck", "Canada", and "Green." Arriving at Gateway August 1, the party continued westward over the Purcell summit and took up the triangulation which had been postponed earlier in the season.

In this western work, the party made observations to connect 24 boundary monuments with the triangulation stations, checked the alinement of a number of intermediate monument sites, opened up main trails for the use of the monumenting party, and cut trails to four monument sites. Observations were made from station "Ewing" of the main scheme which up to this time had not been done.

The weather during the last part of September and the first of October was very stormy and greatly retarded progress. Fortunately, the monumenting party completed its work on September 25, and was able thereafter to assist the triangulation party to such an extent as to overcome the weather handicap and permit the completion of the triangulation by October 15.

MONUMENTING SUBPARTY

The monumenting subparty was formed at the base camp on the Flathead River 4 miles south of the boundary on June 17 in conjunction with the organization of the triangulation subparty. Arrangements had been made to have the monuments and portland cement freighted from Belton to the base camp. Monuments 258 to 267 (present numbers) were packed to their sites and set between June 19 and July 8 without especial trouble or incident.

The remaining 5 monuments, numbers 268 to 272, had to be placed on high and rocky summits which were difficult to reach. They were hauled by wagon to Lower Kintla Lake and from there were distributed by boat and pack train to Upper Kintla Lake and to the nearest points of approach to their sites. The final packing to the sites had to be done by men.

Monument 272 was set on the crest of the Rocky Mountains after two days' hard work. The back-packing was for a distance of over a mile and up a cliff 500 feet high. Fortunately, sand was found near the site and the melting snowbanks furnished water on the spot for the concrete mixture. The site for Monument 271 was easy of access but it required two days to check the alinement on account of the two almost inaccessible points east and west of it which had to be occupied by transit. It required four days' hard work to place and set Monument 270 on the peak nearly 4,000 feet above the lake shore. Monument 269 is nearly 5,000 feet above the lake and had to be back-packed on the hard climb from the lake. Monument 268 was the most difficult to set of all those in the Rocky Mountains. It is on the precipitous west end of the Sawtooth or Boundary Mountains and seemed naccessible from below. The trail used led over the summit of the ridge and the monument was finally lowered by ropes to its site below the cliffs. Six days were required to get it from the lake to its site and to set it. By the exercise of great care and by good fortune the work of setting these monuments was accomplished without accident to man or horse although narrow escapes were frequent.

The monument setting in the Rocky Mountain section was completed on August 2 and the party immediately started west over the Phillipps Creek trail for Gateway. It had been intended to move the party by team to Belton and by railroad from there to Yahk Siding, British Columbia, but a labor strike on the part of the telegraph operators so interfered with railroad dispatching as to make this impossible. Consequently, the move had to be made across the mountains by pack train. To lighten the loads and facilitate the move, an extra pack train of six animals and a packer were hired. The trip to Gateway and from there to Yahk Siding was completed on August 14.

Monuments and cement for the interval of boundary from the Yaak River to Porthill had been delivered by rail and wagon to convenient depots near the boundary. From these depots, they were moved to their proper sites by pack train. The hired pack train was retained to assist with the work.

Beginning with Monument 228, where monumenting had been discontinued in 1904, the party set the 22 monuments to and including Monument 207 at Porthill, Idaho, finishing on September 25.

There was one monument still to be set at Laurier, Washington, to mark the railroad crossing. The foreman and one man were sent there to locate the site and set the monument, which was done on September 29.

At Porthill the remainder of the monumenting party joined the triangulation subparty and assisted it for the rest of the season. The combined party disbanded at Bonners Ferry, Idaho, on October 17.

The operations just described completed the field work of the astronomic party on the boundary west of the summit of the Rocky Mountains. The field equipment of the party was no longer needed, and therefore, the pack trains were assembled at Bonners Ferry and sold at public auction. The still serviceable camp equipment was gathered together and stored at Gateway, Montana, with the thought that it might be used by inspection parties of the future.

The personnel of the United States astronomic party in 1905 was as follows: Chief of party, C. H. Sinclair; assistants, E. R. Martin, William Kendrick; and 10 hands.

TOPOGRAPHIC PARTY

The program for the United States party under the chief topographer contemplated the completion of all field work on the boundary between the Skagit and Similkameen Rivers, consisting of checking the monument sites, extension of triangulation, and the running of some level lines; the continuation of triangulation undertaken by the United States Geological Survey, east along the line from Blaine, Washington; and the determination, by levels, of an elevation at the boundary crossing of the Columbia River.

The first undertaking of the season was the determination of an elevation at the boundary crossing of the Columbia River. A party of two ran a checked level line from a Geological Survey bench mark at Meyers Falls, Washington, over the Great Northern Railway for a distance of 45 miles to Waneta, British Columbia, and set 15 permanent bench marks, one at the boundary crossing and the others at intervals of about 3 miles. Leveling was begun May 7 and completed June 7.

The main party assembled at Loomis, Washington, the last of May and established camp at McDaniel's Ranch, the base camp of 1904. Before the party met, arrangements had been carried out for the delivery of monuments and monumenting material to the boundary pack trail routes, thereby making it possible for the party to begin distributing and setting monuments at once. The first move was to the crossing of the Similkameen River. From this camp Monuments 108 and 109 were set. A return was then made to McDaniel's Ranch and the entire outfit moved to Gold Hill. From Gold Hill the party moved to a camp in Horseshoe Pass about one mile south of the boundary and was there occupied for a time in clearing the trails cut the previous season.

The party was then divided into a triangulation subparty and a monumenting subparty.

TRIANGULATION SUBPARTY

The triangulation subparty first made an additional check of the alinement of the interpolated monument sites, the testing of which on the first chord west of the

Similkameen River was quickly accomplished. To the westward, the work was held up from June 14 to June 28 by deep snow in the high mountain passes, where in addition to the winter's snow, which still blocked the trails, new snow fell nearly every day. After this unavoidable delay the work proceeded without interruption to completion at the Skagit River on July 28.

On July 29 the party commenced extending triangulation westward across the Skagit for the purpose of furnishing control to the Canadian parties and, at the same time, to connect with the triangulation of a United States Geological Survey party working eastward from Blaine and Bellingham, Washington. The completion of this work as planned was prevented by smoke and long continued bad weather culminating in an early snowfall of such depth as to force the party to withdraw from the mountains on October 1. However, triangulation was carried westward far enough to serve the Canadian needs and

to obviate the necessity of continuing the work another season. The party reached Loomis on October 3.

MONUMENTING SUBPARTY

Two monumenting subparties consisting of two fully equipped crews started from Horseshoe Pass on June 9. From June 9 to July 5 each crew maintained its own camp; thereafter both operated from a common camp. Supplies came by pack train from Loomis until the latter part of July. The supply base was then transferred to Princeton and there maintained for the rest of the season.

Distributing and setting monuments were generally carried on rapidly and without unusual difficulties. Monuments and material were packed to the sites by horses save in two instances where the precipitous approaches necessitated backpacking by the men. Monument 95 on the north shoulder of Cathedral Peak was the only one difficult or dangerous to set. It stands on a knife-like rock ridge so narrow that a place had to be blasted out to make room for the monument. At the upper end of the climb, monument and material had to be lifted up by ropes from shelf to shelf on the cliffs. In making the ascent one man lost his footing and fell 30 feet to a rock shelf below, but miraculously sustained only severe body bruises.

Setting the 38 monuments from the Similkameen River to the Skagit River was completed by setting Monument 72 on the east bank of the Skagit on August 28.

LEVEL SUBPARTY

During the first week in September a level party of 4 men, equipped with camp outfit and pack train, was put in the field for the purpose of checking the line of