to band themselves as the Compañía Extranjera, under command of Hartnell, in support of Zamorano's movement against Echeandía and the diputacion, so far as the defence of the capital was concerned. Enough has been said elsewhere of this matter;[1] and its only interest in this connection lies in the fact that the rolls of the company furnish the names of forty-one foreigners, about half of them new-comers.
The second name on the list was that of Thomas Coulter. He was an English scientist, who after extensive travels in Mexico had arrived in California in November 1831, by what route or conveyance I have been unable to learn, but probably by sea.[2] Of Dr Coulter's travels in California, not extending north of San Francisco Bay nor east of the Tule lakes, we know only what may be learned from a paper communicated to the London Geographical Society in 1835, which is, that from March to July of 1832 he made a trip from Monterey via San Gabriel to the Rio Colorado and back.[3] His notes are for the most part geographical in their nature, and are sufficiently indicated on his map, which I here reproduce. One
- ↑ See chap. viii. of this vol.
- ↑ Stillman, in Overland Monthly, ii. 262, quotes a letter written at Monterey in 1831, in which Douglas speaks of having met Coulter. He had been in Sonora in the winter of 1829-30. Parry, Early Bot. Expl., 413, also quotes the letter, and says C. returned to England in 1833.
- ↑ Coulter's Notes on Upper California. Communicated by Dr Thomas Coulter. Read 9th March 1835, in Lond. Geog. Soc. Jour., v. 59-70, with a map. Also extract in Nouv. An. Voy., lxxv. 30-52. The author corrects the 'great popular error' respecting the Tule lakes which has 'raised these comparatively insignificant ponds to the rank of a great inland sea.' He was unable to explore the eastern regions, but questioned the hunters about them. Some geographical positions are given by the use of the chronometer, based on Beechey's longitude of Monterey. The remains of one of the two Colorado missions were found 'on a point of rock projecting a little into the river, and constituting the extreme southern point of the Rocky Mountains.' The region from S. Pedro to S. Bernardino is described as 'the only point of either Californias, south of S. Francisco, capable of sustaining a large population.' 'Any efforts for the purpose of colonizing Upper California should be directed towards the portion north and east of S. Francisco and east of the Tule lakes, which is fertile, well wooded and watered, and of sufficient extent to make its colonization worth while as a speculation.' The white population is estimated at 6,000; while the author notes the rapid decrease and approaching annihilation of the Indians. The neighborhood of S. F. Bay is declared to be the 'only part of the country likely ever to become of much interest to Europeans.'
