I can hardly express the pain which this unfortunate event has occasioned me.  But I can not perceive that any imputation of blame can properly be attached to any officer of the commission.  The care and custody of all the work of the United States scientific corps were properly placed in charge of Major Graham, as the head of that corps, who had had the immediate direction and superintendence of it from the first organization of the commission.  He required the maps and tables at his office for reference and revision in the progress of the astronomical work.  Upon his departure for Mexico he placed Lieutenant A.W.  Whipple in his rooms with an injunction to guard with the utmost care the valuable property of the commission.  On the day after he left the city, and when for the first time informed of the fact, I called upon Lieutenant Whipple and requested him to have all the maps, drawings, and tables ready to be turned over to the State Department on the following day.  On the 24th ultimo I acquainted you with that fact.

No censure can possibly be attributed to Lieutenant Whipple, whose great care and attention to all his duties have been on all occasions highly distinguished.  He escaped from the fire with scarcely an article of his dress, and his loss in money and clothing is at least $1,000.  Major Graham has lost his valuable library, together with personal effects to a large amount.  The fire was communicated from the basement of the house, and by no effort could anything be saved.

There are tracings of the maps upon “tissue paper,” without the topography, in the State of Maine, but they are not signed by the commissioners.

The field books of the engineers were, fortunately, not in Major Graham’s office, and are preserved.

Duplicates of the maps, duly authenticated, have been placed in the British archives at London, which, although they have not the topography of the country so fully laid down upon them as it was upon our own, represent with equal exactness the survey of the boundary itself.  Should it be deemed expedient by this Government to procure copies of them, access to those archives for that purpose would undoubtedly be permitted, and the object accomplished at small expense, and when completed these copies could be authenticated by the joint commissioners in accordance with the provisions of the treaty.

I have the honor to be, with great respect, your obedient and humble servant,

ALBERT SMITH.

Report of the joint commission of boundary appointed under the treaty of Washington of August 9, 1842.

The undersigned, commissioners appointed under the treaty of Washington to trace and mark the boundary, as directed by that treaty, between the British possessions in North America and the United States—­that is to say, James Bucknall Bucknall Estcourt, lieutenant-colonel in the British army, appointed commissioner by Her Britannic Majesty, and Albert Smith, appointed commissioner by the President of the United States—­having accomplished the duty assigned to them, do now, in accordance with the directions of the said treaty, submit the following report and the accompanying maps, jointly signed, to their respective Governments.