470 SCIENTIFIC RECORD FOR 1333. 



which was laid out and measured originally by oue of the parties of 

 Lieutenant Wheeler's Geographical Surveys West of the 100th Me- 

 ridian. 



In addition to a number of small sketch-maps upon a large scale iu 

 different parts of the basin region of Western Nevada, a considerable 

 area, amounting to 1,500 square miles, was surveyed, upon a scale of 

 1 mile to an inch, in the high Sierra of Eastern California. This re- 

 gion is very interesting to the geologist on account of the glacial phe- 

 nomena, both actual and recent, there exhibited. Besides containing 

 the remains of enormous glaciers, there still remain iu this area a num- 

 ber of small glaciers, which cover areas of from a fraction of a square 

 mile to a number of square miles each. 



In the Southern Appalachian country work was prosecuted vigor- 

 ously, no fewer than five topographic parties and two parties for trian- 

 gulation being in the field. The area surveyed in this section during 

 the season amounted to fully 22,000 square miles. It comprises the 

 western part of Maryland with the northern portion of West Virginia, 

 the southern portion of the latter State lying between the Kanawha and 

 Big Sandy Rivers, the southwestern corner of Virginia, the northern 

 half of the valley of East Tennessee, and nearly all the mountain region 

 of North Carolina. Maps of this region have been prepared upon a 

 scale of 2 miles to an inch in approximate contours 200 feet apart verti- 

 cally. Work in this part of the country is necessarily slow, compared 

 with that in the West, owing to the larger proportion of bad weather 

 and to the fact that the country is densely covered with forests, neces- 

 sitating the employment of topographic methods which are slower and 

 more expensive than those which cm be used in the West. 



The work in the State of Massachusetts was placed in charge of Mr. 

 H. T. Walling, and was commenced in Berkshire County, in the west- 

 ern part of the State. Nearly all of the area of this county, with small 

 adjacent portions of New York and Connecticut, was surveyed, amount- 

 ing to 1,500 square miles. A map of this region has been prepared 

 upon a scale of ^ooiro m contours having a vertical interval of 50 feet. 

 In the more level portions of the State the contours have necessarily 

 smaller intervals. 



The result of this season's work is to add between 50,000 and 55,000 

 square miles to the maps of this country. 



Lieutenant Schwatka, of the United States Army, the celebrated 

 Arctic explorer, has made a journey from the Pacific coast to the head- 

 waters of the Yukon Biver and down that river to its mouth. Lieuten- 

 ant Schwatka states, in a communication to Science, that the expedi- 

 tion arose from a desire of the commander of the military Department 

 of the Columbia to gain some military knowledge of the Indian tribes 

 in that district, and of the territory inhabited by them. 



The part of the route from the coast to the Yukon River was almost 

 unexplored, the maps and books relating to it being grossly incorrect 



