Apkil 14, 1899.] 



SCIENCE. 



551 



names of 939 members; the 6tli contains 1,015 

 names, and the 7th 1,055. 



On March 16, 1898, a reception and dinner 

 was held at the Hotel Savoy, which gave so 

 much pleasure as to form the reason for our as- 

 sembling here again to-night. 



The 8th Directory, issued last fall, shows that 

 at that time the membership had increased to 

 1,069 ; it is now Ijnown to be over 1,100 — that 

 is to say, about twice as large as in 1892-93. 

 This great increase in the membership of the 

 scientific societies is a certain index to the 

 scientific progress of the city, and that this Al- 

 liance has contributed much to this well-known 

 remarkable progress there can be no doubt. 



The element that is most needed now, as it 

 was at the formation of the Alliance, is a build- 

 ing which will serve as a home for the societies, 

 where all their meetings can be held and where 

 their proceedings and lectures may best attract 

 more public attention ; the corner-stone for this 

 building has recently been provided by Mrs. 

 Esther Herrman, whose generous gift of ten 

 thousand dollars, made to the Council, brings 

 the great desideratum neai'er than it ever has 

 been before. 



GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



At the 89th meeting of the Society, held in 

 Washington, D. C, March 22, 1899, Messrs. W. 

 C. Mendenhall and F. C. Schrader, of the U. S. 

 Geological Survey, talked of the reconnaissances 

 made by them the past field season in Alaska, 

 while they were under detail with the military 

 exijloring parties sent out by the War Depart- 

 ment. 



Mr. Mendenhall spoke of a reconnaisance 

 from Resurrection Bay to the Tanana River. 

 He said the. route followed by the military ex- 

 ploring party to which he was attached ex- 

 tended from Resurrection Bay, on the southeast 

 shore of Kenai Peninsula, to the Tanana River, 

 at the mouth of the Delta, one of its southern 

 tributaries. The western continuation of the 

 St. Elias Range was crossed by following up 

 the valley of the Matanuski, which rises north 

 of these mountains in a vast marshy plateau on 

 which branches of the Copper and Sushitna 

 Rivers also rise. Beyond this plateau extends 

 the lofty Alaskan Range, with peaks 14,000 



feet in height. The Delta River cuts a gap 

 through these mountains, through which the 

 explorers traveled. 



The greater part of the region traversed was 

 before quite unknown. It presents much di- 

 versity in landscape and physical features. 

 These different types, from the snowy barriers 

 along the Pacific to the dreary wastes of the in- 

 terior, were illustrated by original views. 



The geology of the various areas studied was 

 brought out, and something of the history of the 

 land forms as we now find them. But little gold 

 is known in this part of Alaska, and that little 

 is found along the coast and the adjacent parts 

 of the mainland. Many claims have been staked 

 since the boom struck the Cook Inlet country a 

 few years since, and, although one or two of the 

 richest of these yield as high as S120 a day to 

 the man, the great majority do not pay expenses. 



Mr. Schrader described a hasty reconnais- 

 sance of a part of the Copper River district. 

 The object of the expeditiion was to find an ail- 

 American route from the coast into the gold 

 districts of the Upper Yukon. A route was 

 found which, with some engineering through 

 three miles of canyon on Lowe River, will 

 probably prove satisfactory. 



The Copper is one of the largest rivers on 

 the southern coast of Alaska. It heads far 

 back of the Coast Range, but breaks through it 

 at about 30 miles from the coast and then de- 

 bouches over its large delta into the sea. 



A little west of Mount St. Elias the St. Elias 

 Range divides into two ranges ; of these the 

 main continues westward as the Coast Range 

 around the head of Prince William Sound ; the 

 shoi'ter range, diverging northwestward, forms 

 the divide between the Copper, on the south- 

 west, and the White and Tanana Rivers, on the 

 northeast. In the fork of these two ranges, 

 back of the Coast Range, lies the basin proper 

 of the Copper. A lobe of the northwest range 

 extending into the basin on the east terminates 

 in the Wrangell group of mountains, culmina- 

 ting in a maximum height of more than 17,000 

 feet. Between Prince William Sound, on the 

 south, and the Copper Basin, on the north, the 

 Coast Range consists of a mountainous belt 

 about fifty miles broad, with its general land 

 mass rising to a height of 5,000 feet and slightly 



