Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/667

 vices of an astronomer and surveyor who would undertake this survey for the small amount appropriated, the country being exceedingly rough, and including the crossing of the Blue Mountains. The contract was finally taken by Daniel G. Major late in 1834. 24

By the time the northern boundary was completed, the mining settlements of eastern Oregon demanded the survey of the eastern boundary from that point near the mouth of the Owyhee where it leaves Snake River and continues directly south. The same necessity had long existed for the survey of the 42d parallel between California and Oregon, which was not begun till 1867, when congress made an appropriation for surveying the Oregon and Idaho boundaries as well, Major again taking the contract. Owing to the continuous Indian wars in eastern Oregon, as late as 1867 it was necessary to have a military escort to protect the surveying parties and their supply trains; and it often happened that the forces could not be spared from the scouting and fighting which kept them actively employed. But in spite of these obstacles, in 1869 there had been surveyed of the public lands in Oregon 8,368,564 out of the 60,975,360 acres which the state contained; the surveyed portions covering the largest areas of good lands in the most accessible portions of the state; leaving at the same time many considerable bodies of equally