196 
pilot and as a Museum representative on the 
ship. Captain Comer has had many years’ 
experience in the ice fields of Hudson Bay 
and the Committee has the utmost confidence 
in his ability to guide the ship safely through 
the ice of Baffin Bay, land at Etah and start 
on the homeward journey before the winter 
ice begins to form. 
The Crocker Land Expedition, as will be 
remembered, was organized under the aus- 
pices of the American Museum of Natural 
History and the American Geographical 
Society with the codperation of the Univer- 
sity of Illinois. Its staff, consisting of Donald 
B. MacMillan, leader and ethnologist; Fitz- 
hugh Green, U.S. N., engineer and physicist; 
W. Elmer Ekblaw, geologist and botanist; 
Maurice C. Tanquary, zoélogist; Harrison J. 
Hunt, surgeon; Jerome Lee Allen, wireless 
operator; and Jonathan Small, mechanic, has 
been in the Arctic for nearly two years. The 
party sailed from the Brooklyn Navy Yard 
on July 2, 1913, in the ‘Diana”’ and stopped 
at Boston and Sydney, Nova Scotia, for addi- 
tional supplies. After leaving Sydney, how- 
ever, much ice was encountered in the Strait 
of Belle Isle and in a dense fog on the morn- 
ing of July 17, the ship went fast aground on 
Barge Point, Labrador. The ‘ Diana” was 
finally pulled off the rocks and returned to 
St. Johns where the equipment and supplies 
THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 
were transferred to the “Erik” in which ves- 
sel the party safely continued its northward 
trip. It was found necessary to make the 
headquarters at Etah, North Greenland, in- 
stead of on Ellesmere Land as originally 
planned and it was there that the party spent 
the long Arctic nights of the winter of 1913- 
14. 
In November of last year the Museum, 
through the kindness of Mr. Knud Ras- 
mussen, the Danish explorer, received word 
that Mr. MacMillan accompanied by Ensign 
Green had made the one hundred and twenty- 
five mile dash northwest from Cape Thomas 
Hubbard across the ice of the Polar Sea in 
search for Crocker Land but that they had 
found that Crocker Land did not exist, at 
least within the range originally ascribed to it. 
According to the original plans, the expedi- 
tion is exploring and mapping the Greenland 
ice cap this spring and will later return to 
headquarters at Etah to await the coming of 
the ship chartered for the return to New York. 
The Committee begs to call the attention 
of the friends of the expedition to the urgent 
need that exists for additional funds to help 
defray the cost of sending this relief ship 
northward. The unfortunate wrecking of 
the “Diana” with its incident expenses has 
been a heavy burden and additional subscrip- 
tions are earnestly desired. 
MUSEUM NOTES 
Tue frontispiece of this issue of the 
JOURNAL is a photograph of the marble bust 
of John Burroughs, naturalist and author, 
made by Mr. C. S. Pietro and presented to 
the Museum by Mr. Henry Ford. The bust 
has been put on exhibition at an appropriate 
season — April, the month of reawakening 
nature and return of the birds — and in an 
appropriate part of the Museum, the local 
bird hall. April 3, the anniversary of the 
birth of John Burroughs, has been made a 
national ‘bird day”’ in Utah and was cele- 
brated as a bird day for 1915°in New York 
and various other states. : 
A bird day bulletin to the New York public 
schools, decorated with a portrait of the great 
horned owl in color by Louis Agassiz Fuertes 
was sent out March 25 from the State Educa- 
tion Department of the University of the 
State of New York. The bulletin was 
prepared by the three authors of the State 
Museum memoir, Birds of New York, and 
is endorsed by Dr. John H. Finley in the fol- 
lowing words, ‘‘If these suggestions are gener- 
ally followed, the State will be made richer by 
many millions and a great source of human 
happiness will be kept at our doors.” 
Mr. James P. CHaprin of the Museum’s 
Congo Expedition, after a six years’ absence 
in Africa, arrived in New York March 30 by 
way of England. He brings the details of 
the wonderful success of the expedition, not 
only in the work of a scientific survey but also 
in having lived without mishap for the’ex- 
tended period of six years amidst the dangers 
of the equatorial forest and among the negro 
races of Central Africa—a success due in 
part to the cordial coédperation of the Belgian 
government. Mr. Chapin brings with him 
