16 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



very greatest interest and value, including large numbers of birds, some 

 plants, but principally rich iu ethnological matter. 



The National Museum has heretofore been much favored by ample 

 illustrations of the life of the Eskimo of Greenland, of the Mackenzie 

 River region, and of Northwestern River from Kotzbue Sound around 

 to Cook's Inlet. The acquisition of very large collections from Northern 

 Labrador, made by Mr. Turner, and from Point Barrow and its vicinity, 

 by Lieutenant Ray and his party, nearly completes the series, and 

 enables the Institution to claim for the National Museum the possession 

 of by far the finest series in existence of illustrations of Eskimo life. 



Among the choice ornithological treasures of the Point Barrow Ex- 

 pedition are over 50 skins of Ross's gull, a bird of which only a few 

 specimens are elsewhere known. 



Alaslca. — Quite a number of interesting collections have been received 

 from the different stations in Alaska, although not in such quantity as it 

 has been sometimes our pleasing duty to record. From Saint Michael's 

 nothing has come in 1883; the exhaustive work, however, at that point, 

 first of Messrs. Kennicott, Dall, and Pease, of the Western Union Over- 

 land Telegraph Expedition of 1865, and then of Mr. Turner and Mr. 

 Nelson, has left practically very little to be accomplished. It is ex- 

 pected, however, that something will soon come to hand from the Signal 

 Service observers at that station. 



It is with deep regret that I here record the death, by drowning, 

 April 19 last, of Charles L. McKay, in charge of the United States 

 Signal Service station at Nushagak, Fort Alexander, Alaska, and whose 

 important collection has been the subject of notice in several of the 

 previous reports. 



He started on a tour of exploration to Cape Constantine on the break- 

 ing up of the ice in the river, and, returning, his boat was capsized and 

 he was drowned. The body had not been recovered at the latest ad- 

 vices. 



Mr. McKay had been in the service of the Signal Office about two 

 years, having been nominated by the Smithsonian Institution, through 

 the courtesy of General Hazen. He was not only an efficient meteorol- 

 ogist, but also an accomplished naturalist, trained under the direction 

 of Professor Jordan. 



All the collections made by Mr. McKay at tbe time of his death have 

 been received, through the courtesy of the Alaska Commercial Com- 

 pany, and properly disposed of. They include some very rare forms 

 of animal life, as also numerous ethnological specimens of much interest, 

 showing that the people in the vicinity of Nushagak are essentially 

 Eskimo, but somewhat aberrant in their habits from those in the more 

 northern localities. 



Mr. W. J. Fisher, stationed at Kodiak, in the service of the United 

 States Coast Survey, has also continued his very valuable co-operation by 

 sending many interesting specimens of natural history and ethnology. 



