of barley cannot be transported by these wagons. This quantity is needed to complete the forage that will be consumed in the thirty days above mentioned, and can be placed upon the route by the fifty teams that will be needed in the district after the expedition takes the field, or by private contract, as the general may direct. Bear this in mind, that these supplies do not embrace one pound of subsistence or forage to be used after leaving Fort Yuma, except the item of 10,000 pounds of pemmican. This article, as you know, is prepared from pounded dried beef and beef lard. It takes some time to prepare it, and I respectfully ask immediate authority to make a contract for it. On this point it will be desirable to have a reply by telegraph.

I also have the honor to inclose memorandum, marked B, of supplies required to be at Fort Yuma for a command of 1,600 men, independent of its garrison, for an expedition of ninety days, exclusive of beef six days in the week, which is to be driven on the hoor or purchased en route. In the article of flour I have put down but one pound per ration. To supply this deficiency of food I would recommend that the ration of fresh beef should be increased to one pound and three-quarters, more particularly as the troops will have neither beans, nor rice, nor potatoes. I would respectfully suggest that full rations for the command for ninety days should be shipped from San Francisco, the small rations which we will leave behind us to be drawn upon afterward as occasion may require. Further on you will note a suggestion connected with this particular matter and that of an advanced depot. The total weight of the subsistence stores to be transported, after excluding all small rations and adding the pemmican, you will observe to be 217,000 pounds. The ammunition for small-arms and artillery, hospital stores, tools, clothing, and horse and mule shoes, &c., must be shipped by sea and the Colorad to Fort Yuma; so must the 600,000 pounds of barley noted on this memorandum B. How that forage is to be disposed of is fully set forth on that memorandum. These calculations apply to 144 wagons, four ambulances, and two forges, and are based upon the supposition, that 425 cavalryy horses will carry the barely they require for ten days, the men marching on foot. In this connection I would recommend that three of these ambulances (the fourth is at Fort Yuma), of the best Concord make, be purchased at San Francisco; those in use here and at Benicia are all worn and will not stand the journey when exposed to the dry air and hot sands of the desert.

You must know that when we leave a point ninety miles up the river we shall leave there on deposit for return teams, &c., 54,000 pounds of barley, and take with us 192,500 pounds full rations of the entire command for thirteen days. It is possible that quite a supply of wheat raised by the Indians can be procured at the villages 200 miles above the fort; perhaps wheat and corn from the country on the right of the road 80 or 100 miles farther on. If so, this will be lucky, and figuring from this point something must be left to good fortune in this respect. If in this we are disappointed, we must diminish the forage rations so as to enable us to reach the proposed destination. If you add more wagons they must be used for transportation of forage. You will see that it is not contemplated to take any tents for the use of the command. It is probable that in the country at the other end of the route, particularly if we are successful, we shall be able to obtain flour, bee, and salt, but it is not likely that small stores enough for so large an additional force can be procured; so it is submitted whether it would not be well to have a depot at the villages 200 miles above Yuma, protected by two companies intrenched, the suppl