t Augusta some
additional articles of equipment were obtained from the authorities of
the State, but the barometer which it had been hoped might have been
procured was found to be unfit for service. At Houlton two tents and
a number of knapsacks, with some gunpowder, were furnished by the
politeness of General Bustis from the Government stores.

The boats and all the stores reached Woodstock on the 3d September, and
all the party were collected except one engineer, who had been left
behind at Bangor in the hopes of obtaining another barometer. A bateau
was therefore left to bring him on. The remainder of the boats were
loaded, and the party embarked on the St. John on the morning of the
4th of September. This, the main body, reached the Grand Falls at noon
on the 8th of September. The remaining bateau, with the engineer, arrived
the next evening, having ascended the rapids of the St. John in a time
short beyond precedent. On its arrival it was found that the barometer,
on whose receipt reliance had been placed, had not been completed in
time, and although, as was learnt afterwards, it had been committed as
soon as finished by the maker to the care of Major Graham, the other
commissioners felt compelled to set out before he had joined them. The
want of this barometer, in which defects observed in the others had been
remedied, was of no little detriment.

A delay of eighteen days had occurred in Portland in consequence of the
refusal of Messrs. Cleavelaud and Jarvis to accept their appointments,
and it was known from the experience of the commissioners sent out in
1838 by the State of Maine that it would require at least three weeks
to reach the line claimed by the United States from Bangor. It was
therefore imperative to push forward, unless the risk of having the
whole of the operations of this party paralyzed by the setting in of
winter was to be encountered. It was also ascertained at the Grand Falls
that the streams which were to be ascended were always shallow and
rapid, and that at the moment they were extremely low, so that the boats
would not carry more stores than would be consumed within the time
required to reach the region assigned to Professor Renwick as his share
of the duty and return. It became, therefore, necessary, as it had been
before feared it must, to be content with an exploration instead of a
close and accurate survey. Several of the men employed had been at the
northern extremity of the meridian