SOME RECENT (JEOGIIAPHIC EVENTS 359 



solving the problems of the coastal plain and neighboring dis- 

 tricts, in developing new principles for the classification of for- 

 mations, and in compiling the standard geological maps of the 

 United States and of the State of New York. He established the 

 Potomac, Lafayette, and Columbia formations and traced them 

 and other deposits throughout southeastern United States, his 

 personal mapping of formations and systems covering an area 

 of over 300,000 square miles. In his later work as Ethnologist 

 in charge of tlie Bureau of American B]thnology he has made 

 additions of the very greatest importance to our knowledge of 

 the aboriginal races of the Nortli American continent, and has 

 greatly enriched antliropological literature, both by his official 

 reports and his numerous contributions to the transactions of 

 scientific societies. No worthier representative of American 

 science could have been found to preside over the American 

 Association during the year of the visit of the British Associa- 

 tion to this continent than Prof. W J McGee. J. H. 



SOME RECENT GEOGRAPHIC EVENTS 



In the expectation that opportunity' would be afforded to make 

 them the subject of special articles, several recent occurrences of 

 considerable geographic interest have so far been allowed to go 

 without mention in this journal. The publication of the con- 

 cluding numl)er of the present volume, however, calls for at least 

 a brief notice of tliem, if only as a matter of record. 



These interesting events include the Andree Balloon Expedi- 

 tion to the North Pole and the de Gerlache Expedition to the 

 Antarctic, the return of the Jackson-Harmsworth Expedition 

 from Franz Josef Land, of lieutenant Peary from Greenland, 

 and of Dr Sven Hedin from Central Asia ; the successful ascent 

 of Mount St Elias by Prince Luigi of Savoy, and the Mazama Ex- 

 pedition to the summit of Blount Rainier, with the lamented 

 death of Professor Edgar McClure. 



Herr S. A. Andree, accompanied by Dr Strindbergand the en- 

 gineer, Herr Fraenckell, ascended in his balloon, the Eagle, from 

 Danes island, Spitzbergen, on the afternoon of Sunday, July 11, 

 under favorable meteorological conditions. From that day to 

 this nothing has been heard of the adventurous explorer and his 

 two companions. Many eminent geographers have regarded the 

 expedition as an impracticable if not absolutely foolhard}' en- 



