RECENT GEOGRAPHICAL EXPLORATION. 179 



voyage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, around the north coast of Asia, 

 may be made by a suitable steamer in a few weeks at the proper sea- 

 son, but that the route is not likely to be of any practical commercial 

 importance ; that there is no difficulty in establishing a regular commu- 

 nication by water between the rivers Obi and the Yenisei and Europe 

 for the purposes of trade ; that in all probability the voyage by sea 

 between the Yenisei and Lena, and between the Lena and Europe, may 

 be utilized for the purposes of trade ; that the voyage there and there- 

 from may be made in the same summer ; and that further explorations 

 are necessary to determine whether a practicable communication by 

 water can be established from the river Lena to the Pacific. 



Geological and geographical work in the United States has been 

 pushed with vigor, and some interesting results developed. Mr. G. K. 

 Gilbert has surveyed the Henry Mountains of southern Utah, discovered 

 by Professor Powell ten years ago, and has reached the conclusion that 

 the Saskatchewan River, which rises in the Rocky Mountains, was for- 

 merly the upper course of the Mississippi, and flowed to the Gulf of 

 Mexico, until, by the rising of the land in Minnesota, a barrier was 

 created which changed the course of the river, and by which Lake 

 Winnipeg came into existence. 



Professor J. W. Powell has transmitted to the Government a re- 

 port on the lands of the arid regions of the United States, west of the 

 one-hundredth meridian and east of the Cascade Range, from which it 

 appears that the abundant rainfall in the eastern portion of the United 

 States diminishes westward, until at last an arid region is reached, in 

 which agriculture is not possible without irrigation. This region, 

 Professor Powell says, begins about midway in the great plains and 

 extends across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, except that 

 there is a greater precipitation of moisture in western "Washington and 

 Oregon, and the northwest corner of California, the winds impinging 

 on this region being freighted with moisture, derived from the great 

 Pacific currents, and where this water-laden atmosphere strikes the 

 western coast in full force, as it does in the vicinity of the Columbia 

 River, the precipitation is excessive, but rapidly decreases eastward to 

 the summit of the Cascade Mountains, this humid area being desig- 

 nated by the Professor as the Lower Columbia region. The espe- 

 cially arid portion is the great Rocky mountain region of the United 

 States, and embraces more than two-fifths of the whole country, ex- 

 cluding Alaska. 



One of the curious results that surveys in this country have brought 

 out is, that the configuration of a portion of central New York has 

 been incorrectly described and mapped. Mr. J. T. Gardiner, who had 

 charge of the survey, states that in nearly every instance places were 

 misplaced one or two miles, while, in respect to the general features 

 over which the survey extended, Mr. Gardiner says, " Colorado was 

 not a greater surprise to me than has been the structure of my native 



