The undersigned, in conclusion, beg leave respectfully to urge the importance of a speedy appropriation to enable them to make up their report.  A delay of any continuance will be productive of evil, either by enhancing the cost of office work or by rendering it difficult in consequence of the dispersion of the engineers and surveyors by whom the field notes have been taken.  Upon the completion only of such a report will it be possible to render apparent how much of the whole task has been accomplished and how much remains to be performed; and the Department will then have it in its power to decide whether the part that has not been completed is of such importance to the question at issue as to require further operations upon it.

All which is respectfully submitted.

JAS. RENWICK,
  A. TALCOTT,
    J.D.  GRAHAM,
     Commissioners.

WASHINGTON, January 25, 1842.

Hon. DANIEL WEBSTER,

Secretary of State.

SIR:  The undersigned, commissioners appointed by the President of the United States for the purpose of surveying and exploring the boundary line between the States of Maine and New Hampshire and the British Provinces, beg leave, in compliance with your directions, to submit an estimate for the operations of the commission for the ensuing year.

So much of your directions as regards the state of the survey and the amount required to complete the office work preparatory to a report has already been laid before you in their report of the 4th January, 1842, prepared in anticipation of your orders.  By reference thereto it will appear that the delineation of the meridian of the source of St. Croix has not, in spite of every effort on the part of the commissioner to whom it was assigned, been pursued farther than 81 miles from the monument.  Sixty-four miles, therefore, of the said meridian line remain to be surveyed before this part of their task is completed.  The other two commissioners, while they would not have hesitated to join in a final report in case the state of the survey of the meridian line would have permitted it, are aware that the hasty manner in which their work was performed, in anticipation of completing the object of their appointment during the past year, leaves room for a more accurate examination of some parts of the lines they have surveyed.  Some portions, also, of the lines intrusted to them, respectively, were not reached; and, in addition, a part of the survey which was contemplated in their original instructions from your predecessor was not included in their estimates for the past year, in consequence of its having only a collateral relation to the main object.

Thus the surveys respectively undertaken by Messrs. Talcott and Graham of the lines claimed on the part of Great Britain and by Messrs. Mudge and Featherstonhaugh, although brought near to each other, have not been united, and a part of the highlands claimed by the United States near the source of the Rimouski was not reached by the parties of Professor Renwick.