GEOGRAPHICAL EXPLORATIONS AND DISCOVERIES IN 1868. 



293 



tempt the experiment this season, that the 

 true way to the Pole is by the eastern coast 

 of Greenland, the ice there, being, he says, even 

 in winter, field or floe ice, and always in mo- 

 tion, so that it is more easily penetrated than 

 the attached ice of Smith's Sound. He urges also 

 that this route is the one most readily and easily 

 accessible, and that it can be reached so much 

 earlier than any other as to give a much longer 

 season for prosecuting the voyage. 



With so many ardent explorers in the field, 

 it is hardly possible that another year should 

 pass without revealing to us the secrets so long 

 sought, and demonstrating that it is not so very 

 cold and dismal at the North Pole after all. 



With a few words concerning some of the 

 countries partially or wholly within the arctic 

 circle, we will pass to warmer climes. 



Mr. Edward Whymper undertook, in 1867, 

 an exploration of the interior of Greenland, 

 while his brother was ascending the Yukon in 

 Alaska; but his expedition was somewhat un- 

 successful, in consequence of an epidemic which 

 delayed him until much of the route he had in- 

 tended to traverse was impassable. He, how- 

 ever, made a considerable collection, mineral, 

 botanic, and archaeological, and obtained par- 

 tial vocabularies of some of the Indian and 

 Esquimaux tribes. 



In Iceland there was a violent eruption, in 

 August, 1867, from the north side of the vol- 

 cano Skaptar Jokull, which was visible for 

 more than a hundred miles from the shores of 

 the island. No lives were lost, nor was any 

 serious injury sustained in consequence of it. 

 The attention of Danish geographers and phys- 

 icists has been of late called to the mountains 

 of Iceland, which are more numerous than is 

 generally supposed. Professor Schjellerup in 

 1867 published a list of twenty-one, giving the 

 latitude and longitude of each, and its height 

 above the sea in Danish feet, which differ but 

 very slightly from English feet. Of these the 

 Oro3fa Jokull is the loftiest, being 6,241 feet 

 above the sea-level. The next four in height 

 are the Eyjafjulla Jokull, 5,432 feet; Herder- 

 bried, 5,290 feet; Hecla, 4,961 feet; and the 

 Snaefells Jokull, 4,577 feet. None of the others 

 rise above 4,000 feet ; and the lowest, Ing61f- 

 shoifdi, is but 260 feet in height. A consider- 

 able number of the whole are volcanoes. 



Alaska, considering its remoteness, and how 

 little was previously known concerning it, has 

 within the past two years been explored more 

 fully than most of the northern portion of the 

 continent. Mr. Frederick Whymper ascended 

 and descended the Yukon River for 1,300 

 miles, and explored other portions of the terri- 

 tory with great care and thoroughness. Mr. 

 Dall^and Mr. Thomas Kane (brother of the 

 Arctic explorer), have both traversed consid- 

 erable portions of it, and have given us a very 

 fair idea of the commercial, agricultural, min- 

 eral, and zoological value of our new territory. 

 That it has several large navigable rivers, great 

 numbers of fur-bearing animals, some valuable 



minerals and metals, and trees and shrubs of 

 stinted growth, except in the interior, fisheries 

 of considerable probable value, coal of good 

 quality, and ice in great abundance, may be con- 

 sidered certain. Its native inhabitants seem 

 to be, in about equal numbers, Esquimaux, or 

 Innuit, and Indians ; but the former, whose 

 homes are nearer the coast, in striking con- 

 trast to those in the more eastern part of the 

 continent, are men of large stature, finely 

 formed, and considerably intelligent; while 

 the Indians are smaller and some of them more 

 degraded than most of the Indian tribes of the 

 Pacific slope. Mr. Whymper, who visited also 

 Kamtchatka and the coasts of Northeastern 

 Siberia, obtained very full vocabularies of the 

 languages of several of the Indian and Esqui- 

 maux tribes on both continents, and the great 

 similarity of some of these indicates the close 

 connection between the Esquimaux of North- 

 ern America and the Aborigines of Northern 

 Siberia. His narrative of his travels, which is 

 very interesting, has been republished here by 

 Harper and Brothers. Mr. W. H. Dall, who 

 was a companion of Mr. Whymper in a part of 

 his tour, in a paper read before the Boston So- 

 ciety of Natural History, confined himself 

 mainly to the physical geography of Alaska. 

 He states that the Rocky Mountain range, about 

 latitude 64, turns westward, and meets the 

 coast range in a confused, high, rolling coun- 

 try, where the distinctive characters of both 

 ranges are lost. From these springs, however, 

 one lofty volcanic range, which, extending at 

 first westward, and then southward, forms the 

 backbone of the peninsula of Alaska. North 

 of this, between the Mackenzie and Porcupine 

 Rivers, the country is filled with low rolling 

 hills, but west of the Mackenzie,- along the 

 northern coast, the Romanzoif Mountains, a 

 separate, lofty, snow-capped range, extend 

 nearly to the mouth of the Colville River. 

 There are, in consequence of this deflection of 

 the mountains westward, two distinct fauna 

 in the territory; that of the west coast of 

 North America, bounded to the north by the 

 Alaskan Mountains, and that of the great val- 

 ley of the Yukon and its tributaries, which is 

 properly northern and eastern in its character. 

 There are no glaciers north of the Alaskan 

 Mountains, but many local ones south of these 

 mountains. 



Captain Edward G. Fast, formerly stationed 

 at Sitka, brought to New York, early in 1868, 

 a large collection of implements, domestic and 

 warlike, and curiosities and antiquities of this 

 new region, many of them illustrative of the 

 degree of civilization, habits, and customs of 

 the Indian and Esquimaux tribes there. 



In the summer of 1867, Commander W. 

 Chimmo, of the British Navy, in her Majesty's 

 steamship Gannet, surveyed a portion of the 

 Labrador coast, between the parallels of 52 

 and 56 north latitude, and found that the 

 charts of previous surveys had placed the 

 coast from ten to eleven miles too far eastward. 



