370 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Mearns has prepared nearly 3,100, Mr 

 Loring 899, and Mr Heller about 50 — a 

 total of about 4,000 birds. 



Of reptiles and batrachians, Messrs 

 Mearns, Loring, and Heller collected 

 about 2,000. 



Of fishes, about 500 were collected. 

 Doctor Mearns collected marine iishes 

 near Mombasa, and fresh-water fishes 

 elsewhere in British East Africa, and he 

 and Cuninghame collected fishes in the 

 White Nile. 



This makes, in all, of vertebrates : 



Mammals 4397 



Birds (about) 4,000 



Reptiles and batrachians (about) . 2,000 



Fishes (about) 500 



Total 11-397 



The invertebrates were collected chiefly 

 by Doctor Mearns, with some assistance 

 from Messrs Cuninghame and Kermit 

 Roosevelt. 



A few marine shells were collected 

 near Mombasa, and land and fresh- 

 water shells throughout the regions vis- 

 ited, as well as crabs, beetles, millipeds, 

 and other invertebrates. 



Several thousand plants Avere collected 

 throughout the regions visited by Doctor 

 Mearns, who employed and trained for 

 the work a M'nyumnezi named Makan- 

 garri, who soon learned how to make 

 very good specimens, and turned out an 

 excellent man in every way. 



Anthropological materials were gath- 

 ered by Doctor Mearns, with some assist- 

 ance from others ; a collection was con- 

 tributed by Major Ross, an American in 

 the government service at Nairobi. 



I have the honor to be. 

 Very truly yours, 



Theodore; Roosi;ve;lt. 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SO- 

 CIETY'S ALASKAN EXPEDITION 



The Board of Managers of the Na- 

 tional Geographic Society has made an 

 appropriation of $5,000 for an Alaskan 

 Expedition in 1910 under the leadership 

 of Prof. Lawrence Martin, of the Uni- 

 versity of Wisconsin. The work will he 

 a continuation of the glacial studies car- 

 ried on by Professors Tarr and Martin 



for the Society in 1909, and described 

 briefly in the January number of the 

 National Geographic Magazine^ and 

 more fully in a book now in preparation. 



The expedition will leave for Alaska 

 early in June, spending three or four 

 months in field work among the glaciers 

 of the Alaskan coast, where the most 

 active advances of ice tongues that man 

 has ever seen are in progress among the 

 greatest existing glaciers outside the 

 polar regions. 



The work will begin with a brief visit 

 to Yakutat Bay, where it is of the utmost 

 importance to determine what glaciers, 

 if any, have resumed activity since 1909, 

 and what has happened to the glaciers 

 which were then so active. Following 

 this the glaciers of the lower Copper 

 River will be examined in detail. 



The Columbia Glacier will then be 

 studied to see whether the great advance 

 in progress in July and August, 1909, 

 has continued, and after this the other 

 glaciers of Prince William Sound will be 

 visited and the larger phenomena of gla- 

 ciation investigated. 



The party will consist of a skilled 

 topographer, loaned by the U. S. Geo- 

 logical Survey, a photographer, and sev- 

 eral other assistants. The work will in- 

 clude not only studies of the ice, the gla- 

 cial deposits, relations to life, etc., but 

 precise mapping, observations of nature 

 and rate of ice motion, sounding in the 

 fiords near the fronts of the tidal gla- 

 ciers, etc. 



The present time seems to be one of 

 unusual opportunity for study of these 

 Alaskan glaciers, for scientists might 

 have to w^ait decades or centuries for a 

 repetition of the ice-flood advances now 

 in progress. They have already revolu- 

 tionized our theories of the cause for 

 glacier advance. The new theory ex- 

 plains these oscillations of Alaskan gla- 

 ciers, not by climatic fluctuations, but by 

 avalanching during violent earthquakes. 

 The advance of at least eight glaciers in 

 Yakutat Bay, including part of the great 

 iMalaspina Glacier, about 300 square 

 miles of which became crevassed in less 

 than ten months, as well as the Hidden 

 Glacier, which advanced two miles, and 

 manv others is thus understood. 



