174 E. R. Scidniore — Recent Explorations in Alaska. 



None can explain this neglect of and indifference to such a valu- 

 able territory, and Elisee Reclus in his " Boreal America " rather 

 sharply notes that the United States considered Alaska " un- 

 worthy of its attention until the pockets of its concessionaires 

 [the seal island lessees] were touched." 



During the first ten years of military rule (1867 to 1877) no 

 reconnaissances or expeditions were attempted. The presence 

 of a naval ship in southeastern Alaska for fourteen years has 

 added nothing to our geographic knowledge of the country. 

 With the exception of the expeditions sent from the Columbia 

 by General Miles, all exploration has been by private enterprise. 

 Miners found their own way over to the Yukon, and their camps 

 and communities are still without shadow of government con- 

 trol. Professor Muir discovered and first reported the ^ great 

 glacial system as the result of his own investigations, and the 

 National Geographic Society's two expeditions to mount Saint 

 EHas anticipated government surveys and measurements of that 

 corner-stone of the continent. 



After General Miles' summer pleasure trip to southeastern 

 Alaska in 1882, he had some expedition to Alaska always in 

 hand so long as he remained at fort Vancouver. At his in- 

 stance Lieutenant Frederick Schwatka was detailed to make a 

 military reconnaissance of the Yukon river, following the route 

 used by some three hundred miners during the two seasons 

 preceding his famous raft voyage. It was not discovery in any 

 sense, as not only these miners but the surveyors of the Western 

 Union Telegraph Company had long preceded him, and the Drs 

 Krause, of the Berlin and Bremen Geographical Societies, had 

 but a short time before mapped the passes over the range at the 

 head of Lynn canal. 



General Miles next detailed Dr Everette to further explore 

 Chilkat pass and the source of the Alsek, and dispatched Lieu- 

 tenant Abercrombie to a,scend Copper river, but neither expe- 

 dition w.as- fully successful. ■ 



His detail of Lieutenant Henr}^ T. Allen for a reconnaissance 

 of the Copper river in 1885 resulted in the first discoveries and 

 really important contribution to the geography of the country 

 since the transfer. He traversed an absolutely unknown region, 

 tracing Copper river up to its head-waters and the Tanana 

 down from that same divide to the Yukon, and made a hasty 

 survey and track-chart of the Koyukuk river before hastening 



