Work of the National Gcor/rapJtic Society. 175 



to Saint Michaels. His triangulations gave the first reliahle 

 data concerning the active volcano of mount Wrangell, whose 

 summit is by his estimate onl}^ 17,500 instead of the fabled 

 28,000 feet al)ove the sea. He accomplished all this in the face 

 of the greatest hardships; and while the Allen expedition was 

 the most successful and noteworthy of any thus far made in 

 Alaska, it has been the least exploited and appreciated. Had 

 his rivers, canyons, glaciers and great volcano been in Green- 

 land, New Guinea or central Africa, two continents would have 

 applauded and bestowed medals on him. 



The National Gp:ographic Society has not only equipped 

 two expeditions to Alaska, but it claims enrolled in its member- 

 ship nearly every individual who has discovered, explored, ex- 

 ploited or made any special contributions to our knowledge of 

 this farthest northwest territory. It has twice attempted to have 

 mount Saint Elias scaled, and it may yet find the navigable 

 channel of the Yukon, a river easily navigable for two thousand 

 miles were a deep channel known through the fiats that extend 

 a hundred miles ofi' its mouth. While ships run aground before 

 they are within sight of land, the white whale enters the slug- 

 gish river by some deep pass and spouts for hundreds of miles 

 uja the stream. 



One eminent member of the Society, Professor John Muir, 

 discovered the great bay full of tide-water glaciers at the foot of 

 mount Fairweather in 1879. Captain Lester Beardslee, another 

 member, named this Glacier bay, and furnished its first rough 

 sketch majD ; and a third member, Captain James Carroll, suc- 

 cessfully navigated it by ocean steamer in 1883, and named the 

 great Muir glacier. There has not been an actual government 

 survey of the Avaters since the bay was discovered, and all charts 

 are compiled from private sources. 



In 1890 Professor Harry Fielding Reid, another member of 

 the Society, explored and mapped Muir glacier and its twenty- 

 six tributary ice streams. In 1892 Professor Reid explored 

 the upper end of the bay, finding and naming the Woods, 

 Charpentier, Johns' Hopkins, Rendu and Carroll glaciers, and 

 mapping also the Geikie, Hugh Miller and Grand Pacific glaciers, 

 which Professor Muir saw from the mountain summit ten j'ears 

 previously. Four other members of the National Geographic 

 Society camped at the Muir glacier one season, exploring the 

 region as a- huntiug ground, while Professor T. J. Richardson 



