18973 ^'The Silent City^^ 



according to one Willoughby, a local woodsman, 

 the mirage of a great city which he had, in fact, 

 succeeded in photographing. Among the many a profit- 

 buyers of the picture there was much speculation "^^^ ^"""^ 

 as to the origin of the apparition; was it Montreal, 

 strangely brought into the line of vision, or some 

 cathedral town in the unexplored fastness of the 

 St. Elias range, or perhaps a glimpse of the Holy 

 City itself? But the next year Gilbert, being in 

 Alaska, looked up Willoughby, who it then ap- 

 peared knew absolutely nothing of photography. 

 The picture, moreover, was at once recognized by 

 Professor Hudson of Stanford as having been made 



! from a faded negative of Bristol, England, his former 

 home. 



I Upon my return to the University I received the 

 report of an expedition I had sent to Guadalupe, a 

 rocky, uninhabited, and unprotected island off the 

 northwest coast of Mexico, from which Townsend, 

 some years before, secured four skulls of a Fur 

 Seal of Antarctic type, named (by Dr. Merriam) 

 Arctocephalus townsendi. Guadalupe, we knew, had 

 been freely raided from Ensenada and San Diego, 



I but it was hoped that some animals might still exist 

 there. A steamer of the Coast and Geodetic Survey 

 had accordingly been detailed for an investigation 

 conducted by Professors Thoburn and Green. A Fur Seab 



j thorough search by the members of this expedition 



' disclosed many items of interest, especially the island 

 spread of a flock of goats introduced at some time 

 or other, but no traces of Fur Seal were found, and 

 townsendi must therefore be regarded as extinct. 



1:601 : 



extinct on 

 Guadalupe 



