Geographic Notes 



405 



■cember i. The dredging and other 

 work will be made from this vessel. 

 For the past ten years Dr. Gilbert has 

 been professor of zoology in the Leland 

 Stanford, Jr., University, and is the 

 joint author with President David Starr 

 Jordan of ' ' Synopsis of the Fishes of 

 North America." For a number of 

 years he has also had official connection 

 with the Fish Commission. 



Ametican Progress in the Philippines* — 



During the three years since the Amer- 

 'ican occupation of Manila 6,000 miles 

 of telegraph lines and cables have been 

 laid in the Philippine Islands by the 

 U. S. Signal Corps. It is now possi- 

 ble to telegraph from Cape Bojeador, 

 on the extreme north coast of Luzon, to 

 the capital of the Jolo Archipelago, i ,000 

 miles distant. Governor Taft, at Ma- 

 nila, can thus be informed at almost a 

 moment's notice of happenings in all sec- 

 tions of the archipelago. Three years 

 ago, to send a message from Jolo to Ma- 

 nila required nearly three weeks. 



U, S. Blologflcal Survey. — Dr. C. Hart 

 Merriam, Chief of the Survey, during 

 the past season has been studying the 

 zones of distribution of the fauna of 

 southern California. He was also a 

 month in the Sierra Nevada with John 

 Muirengagedinsimilar work there, Mr. 

 Preble, of the Survey, was making col- 

 lections in the region of the Great Slave 

 lyake. Specimens of the fauna of the 

 five Arctic regions — Labrador, Hudson 

 Bay, the Mackenzie River and the 

 Great Slave Lake, the Yukon River, 

 and the Alaskan coast — are now pos- 

 sessed by the Survey. 



National Geographic Society Lectures* — 



On another page of this Magazine ap- 

 pears the program of lectures presented 

 in Washington by the Society during 

 the season of igoi-1902. The course 

 is comprehensive, including the main 

 problems of a geographic character, 



that are of interest and importance 

 to the American public. Each sub- 

 ject is to be treated by an eminent au- 

 thority who has had exceptional op- 

 portunities for studying the topic which 

 he will discuss. To select a more inter- 

 esting and valuable program would in 

 fact be difficult. The majority of the 

 lectures will be published in this Maga- 

 zine during the coming months. 



The Imperial Geographical Society of 



St. Petersburg has received letters from 

 Lieutenant Kozloff, who was sent out 

 in March, 1900, to explore the sources 

 of the Yellow and Yangtze rivers. 

 During the summer of 1900 the party 

 made important surveys around the 

 headwaters of the Yellow, and then, be- 

 cause of hostile natives, turned south 

 toward the sources of the Yangtze. 

 Later, in March, 1901, they fell in with 

 a caravan traveling from Lassa to 

 Szechuen, and gave them the letters 

 for St. Petersburg. The party was not 

 attacked in 1900, but a report is now 

 current in St. Petersburg that they were 

 attacked during July, 1901, nearKobdo, 

 and twenty men of the party slain. 

 Kobdo is in Mongolia, about 100 miles 

 from the Siberian border, and was the 

 starting point of the expedition. 



The U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey 



has established a magnetic observatory 

 at Sitka, Alaska, and is constructing 

 another at Honolulu, Hawaii. At these 

 stations observations will be made simul- 

 taneously with those taken by the Brit- 

 ish, Swedish, and German expeditions 

 to south polar regions, beginning in 

 February, 1902. 



The Survey will soon dispatch the 

 Pathfinder to the Philippine Islands to 

 assist in charting the harbors and coasts, 

 which will then be actively begun. 



During the past season parties from 

 the Coast Sur\'ey have been charting 

 Cross Sound and Icy Strait, which form 

 the northern approach to Juneau and 



