232 NATURAL SCIENCE. Sept., 



Russell has made three journeys into the country himself, and he 

 completes his account from the narratives of others who have travelled 

 on various business in the country. 



It is difficult at first to reahse that Alaska is eighteen times the 

 size of Scotland, and that it has a general coast-line of 4,000 miles, 

 or, if the shores of the bays and islands be measured, of 11,000 — 12,000 

 miles. The river Yukon divides the country in two approximately 

 equal portions. It rises in the north-western part of Canada, flows 

 westward across the territory, and falls into the Behring Sea. The 

 Yukon has a length of 2,000 miles, and drains an area equal to 

 440,000 square miles. It has every appearance of great age, and has 

 been repeatedly disturbed and obstructed by volcanic action. The 

 vast mountain system follows the coast, and is a continuation of the 

 Cordilleras. The culminating peaks of the range are found in Alaska, 

 and are Mount Logan, 19,500 feet, and Mount St. Elias, 18,010 feet. A 

 host of other peaks, several of which exceed 14,000 feet in height, 

 make this region one of the most rugged and impassable in the world. 



The region is one of volcanoes, and eruptions of more or less 

 magnitude are of frequent occurrence. Mr. Russell notes that 

 Shishaldin, in the island of Unimak, is a symmetrical cone with 

 gracefully curving sides of the same type as Fuji-San, and rises to 

 the height of about 8,000 ft. The wreath of smoke proceeding from 

 the crater is a well-known beacon to mariners. On the shores of 

 Behring Sea and of the Arctic Ocean the lofty mountains disappear 

 and give place to the "tundras" or low, nearly-level, moss-covered 

 plains of 70 — 100 miles broad. During the summer these tundras 

 are swampy and covered with mosses, lichens, small flowering plants, 

 rushes, and ferns. The most conspicuous plants are the dwarf willows, 

 which attain a height of about 2 ft. The soil is a black humus, and 

 at a general depth of a foot or thereabouts is always frozen. This 

 frozen subsoil is not confined to the tundras, but in many places 

 along the Yukon river the banks are formed of horizontal sheets of 

 ice many feet thick, covered with moss, and supporting a dense 

 forest of spruce. In hot summer, when the temperature is from 

 90° — 100° F. in the shade, one may brush away the moss at his 

 feet and find solid ice beneath. 



In some places a depth of 300 feet of black, peaty humus has 

 been observed, and Mr. Russell notes the interest of these deposits 

 in connection with the formation of coal. 



The glaciers of Alaska are, with the exception of those of Green- 

 land, the largest and most instructive in the Northern Hemisphere. 

 The largest is the Malaspina, on the south of Mount St. Elias. Here 

 numerous ice-rivers meet and unite in one great sheet about i ,500 square 

 miles in extent. Mr. Russell states that the glaciers of Alaska are 

 slowly retreating, and that this recession has probably been going on 

 steadily for the past 100 or 150 years. 



Mr. Russell points out that Alaska is not so densely forested as is 

 generally assumed, — and that, in fact, the tree region is confined to 

 the south-eastern part of the country, most of the western portion 

 being treeless. The article concludes with some observations on the 

 inhabitants, and will well repay perusal as a general summary of 

 information on a region at present but little known. 



Wf. have received from M. Augusto Nobre the number for July, 1894, 

 vol. i., no. 3, of that enterprising Portuguese publication, the Aiinaes 

 de Sciencias Natnraes. Among other interesting matter it contains a 



