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REVIEWS. 



Alaska and its Resources. By William II. Dall, Director of 

 the Scientific Corps of the late Western Union Telegraph Expedi- 

 tion. Boston : Lee & Shepard, 1870. 



There lies on the extreme north-western region of the North American 

 continent an isolated tract of country, bounded on three of its sides by 

 the Arctic and North Pacific Oceans and Behring Straits, and on its 

 fourth by an imaginary geographical parallel separating it from British 

 North America. Until little more than three years ago this region 

 figured on our atlases — as on all but the very newest it still does,— as 

 Russian America. But it attracted no attention ; and the details of 

 its geographical features or physical characteristics were, for the most 

 part, little better defined than those around Baffin's Bay or Barrow 

 Straits. 



The progress of modern science, stimulated to fresh enterprise by 

 international rivalry, has had its share in bringing this terra incognita 

 under survey, and reducing to some trustworthy extent of detail the 

 facts pertaining to its physical geography and aboriginal inhabitants. 

 In 1858 the first submarine Atlantic Telegraph was successfully laid ; 

 and though the rejoicings at its accomplishment were speedily arrested, 

 and the derangement of its continuity rendered necessary the recon- 

 struction of the whole costly work : nevertheless the practicability of the 

 enterprise was demonstrated beyond all doubt, and the success which 

 has since so triumphantly crowned this noble enterprise was anticipated 

 as only a question of time. Meanwhile, in remote San Francisco, 

 relations had been established with Russian America, chiefly with a 

 view to secure a monopoly of its ice trade : when, in 1861, the idea 

 was started of constructing a telegraph line from San Francisco to 

 Behring Strait, crossing that Arctic channel by a submarine cable, 

 and thence by overland line to meet the Russian government telegraph, 

 already carried to the mouth of the Amoor River. The Western 

 Union Telegraph Expedition was accordingly inaugurated in the follow- 

 ing year on a creditable scale ; and indeed with a complement of semi- 

 military commissions, uniforms, flags, and badges, very unusual in any 

 peaceful scientific exploration. Happily those showy adornments, inci- 

 dent to the recent military experiences of the United States, were 



