208 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



according to the natives, through a low, marshy, and very 

 sparingly-wooded country. 



Mr. Murray, in his letter to me quoted above, mentions 

 his intention of exploring the Yukon as far as he had 

 leisure to do so in the summer of 1850; and it was pro- 

 bably the report of his party having been seen which in- 

 duced Captain Collinson to land Lieutenant Barnard and 

 Mr. Adams at Fort Michaelowsky, that they might ascer- 

 tain who the white men were. 



On the Pacific coast only of North America does vol- 

 canic action exist at the present time. Many peaks 

 throwing out fire and smoke are mentioned by Baer. 

 They lie in a line running west-south-west from the north 

 side of Kanai or Cook's Inlet, through the peninsula of 

 Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. Many of their summits 

 rise into the region of perpetual snow. Among these 

 Uaman has a height of 13,151 feet, and Winkelhohe of 

 11,270, both lying on the north bank of Cook's Inlet. 

 In Alaska there is the Peak of St. Paul, and in the islands 

 Schischaldin which is 8,953 feet high, besides Schimaldin, 

 Makuschkin, Korowenskische, and many others. The line 

 in which these volcanic peaks lie when prolonged to the 

 eastward, strikes the Big Beaver Mountains on the Yukon. 



Mounts Edgecumbe, Fairweather, and St. Elias are, I 

 believe, extinct volcanoes, which form, with those of 

 Alaska, nearly the segment of a circle. 



On the side of the Atlantic modern volcanic rocks occur 

 in Jan Mayen's Island only, whose principal mountain, 

 Beerenberg, rises 6,870 feet above the sea. In the coal of 

 Jameson's Land, lying in north latitude 71° on the east 

 side of Greenland, and in that of Melville Island, in lati- 

 tude 75° north, Professor Jameson found plants resembling 

 fossils of the coal fields of Britain. This fact is sufficient 

 of itself to raise a world of conjecture respecting the con- 



