176 E. B. Scidmore — Recent Exvlorations in Alaska. 



made careful record of its landscape features in the series of ice 

 studies and other paintings exhibited in the Alaska section of 

 the Government building at Chicago. 



In 1890 the late Frederick Schwatka, who had then resigned 

 from the army, led an expedition through the British north- 

 west and Alaska to seek an easier route from Juneau, the mining 

 center of Alaska, to the head-waters of Yukon river, and a 

 new route from that region to the seacoast. His untimely end 

 prevented his publishing the narrative of a journeyas hazardous 

 and important as any he ever attempted. He was accompanied 

 by Dr C. Willard Hayes, of the National Geographic Society. 

 The first half of their journey, while not over wholly unknown 

 ground, was virtually an exploration, in that it was a practical 

 search for and trial of a new route to the Yukon. They as- 

 cended Taku river, crossed the Cordilleran divide, and rafted 

 down rivers and lakes to the junction of Pelly and Lewis rivers 

 which form the Yukon; thence, following White river to its 

 source, they crossed a divide formed by a spur of the Saint Elias 

 range and descended the Nizzenah to Copper river, and thence 

 to the ocean — their route describing a great arc behind the Coast 

 range and twice crossing it. A brief narrative with maps and 

 descriptive text representing the scientific results of this expedi- 

 tion, prepared by Dr Hayes, has been published in the National 

 Geographic Magazine. 



Mr E. J. Glave, fresh from African exploration, spent two 

 seasons in exploring between the Chilkat pass and the Alsek's 

 mouth. His later success in taking pack-horses over Chilkat 

 pass in 1891 and finding rich pasturage for them in the bush 

 country beyond proved the feasibility of pack-trails all through 

 those mountains. The miners have vainly urged upon the gov- 

 ernment the building of a military road across the Yukon passes, 

 but even Mr Glave's demonstration of the pack-horse problem 

 does not incline that institution to heed the request of the thou- 

 sand wholly ungoverned miners. 



There is no record that any of the navigators who sighted 

 mount Saint Elias and made such varying estimates of its height 

 ever made any attempt to reach it. The first known attempt to 

 climb the great mountain was that made by Professor Charles H. 

 Taylor, of Chicago, in 1877. He went out admirably equipped 

 and accompanied by Lieutenant C. E. S. Wood, of the United 

 States Army. The refractoriness and final mutiny of their In- 



