720 REPORT — 1897. 



email advantage, as it gives tlie largest possible volume to the fall and places it 

 Bear sea transportation. 



Although of small area and modest relief, the coastal plain of Maine between 

 the oldland behind it and the sea in front exercises a manifest control on the 

 distribution and occupation of the people. The irregular shore line afibrds many 

 harbours ; here fishermen and boatbuilders are found. The numerous waterfalls 

 define the sites of manufacturing villages and cities. The smoother parts of the 

 plain are occupied by farmers, who utilise the adjacent ridges and hills of the old- 

 land for pasture and woodland. The oldland itself, unless well sheeted with glacial 

 drift, is rugged and inhospitable, and the sad little farms in occasional clearings 

 there are in marked contrast to the thrifty and well-to-do houses and barns on the 

 plain itself, 



.5. The Unification of Time at Sea. By C. E. Lumsden. 



6. The Barren Lands of Canada. By 3. B. Tyrrell, M.A., B.Sc. 



The 'Barren Lands,' or more properly the Northern Plains and Prairies of 

 Canada, cover an area of about 400,000 square miles between the Mackenzie River 

 and Hudson Bay, extending from the coast line of the Arctic Ocean down to the 

 general northern limit of the forest. On the west coast of Hudson Bay they reach 

 southward to north latitude 59°, and thence their southern boundary extends in a 

 north-westerly direction, roughly at right angles to the magnetic meridian, to 

 within a short distance of the mouth of the Mackenzie Tiiver, crossing the Kazan at 

 Ennadai Lake, the Telzoa River at Boyd Lake, and keeping some distance back 

 from the shore of Great Slave Lake. 



In general character the country is a vast undulating, stony plain, thinly 

 covered with short grass, while rounded rocky hills rise here and there through 

 the stony clay. It can be divided into two fairly distinct portions, viz., the 

 * Coastal Plain,' which rose from beneath the ocean in post-Glacial times, and tlie 

 ■' Interior Upland," with a somewhat more pronounced topography, just as it was 

 left at the close of the Glacial epoch. 



The whole country slopes gently towards the north-east, and the three main 

 streams which drain it have a more or less parallel course in that direction. These 

 streams are the Back or Great Fish River, with a total length of 650 miles ; the 

 Telzoa or Doobaunt River, with a length of 750 miles; and the Kazan River, with 

 a length of about 490 miles. 



The author showed illustrations, drawn from photographs, exemplifying the 

 general character of the country, its herds of reindeer, and its native inhabitants. 



7. Geofp'aphic Work of the United States Geographical Survey. 

 By Charles V. Walcott, Director of the Survey. 



The paper begins with the summary sketch of geographic surveys in the 

 United States prior to the organisation of the United States Geographical Survey 

 in 1879, and then sets forth the methods and progress of the geographic surveys 

 ■conducted by this bureau. The surveys are designed for mapping on scales of 

 1 : 02,500 and 1 : 125,000 ; and the work is drawn and engraved on copper in the 

 office of the survey ; the mapping is in sheets, each covering a quarter of a square 

 degree for the larger scale and one-sixteenth of a square degree for the smaller 

 scale, and each is engraved on three copper plates for printing in three colours — 

 black for the projection and culture, &c., blue for the hydrography, and brown for 

 the hypsography or vertical relief (which is expressed in contours). The purpose 

 of these maps is to form a basis for the geographical surveys and the general 

 geological maps of the United States, which it is the primary function of the survey 

 to execute. The geographic surveys have already extended over about 760,000 



