June 29, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



655 



ture tlie products. Tlie chemists of the color 

 investigation laboratory will assist with ex- 

 pert advice, etc. The department reserves the 

 right to publish all the data obtained from the 

 technical experiments. 



Since it seems very desirable that phthalic 

 acid and phthalic anhydride be made available 

 in large quantity in this country at the earliest 

 possible moment, this offer of assistance will 

 not be held open by the department for an in- 

 definite period. D. F. Houston, 



Secretary 



U. S. Department op Agriculture, 

 Washington, D. C, 

 June 16 



THE CROCKER LAND EXPEDITION 



Dr. Harrison J. Hunt, surgeon of the 

 Crocker Land Expedition, arrived in 'New 

 York on June 20, on the Danish steamer 

 United States and reported the story of his 

 journey by sledge over the young ice of Mel- 

 ville Bay. He said that the other members 

 of the Crocker Land Expedition were in ex- 

 cellent health when he left them, but that, 

 owing to their supplies being very low, it is 

 imperative that relief be sent to them at once. 

 The Committee-in-Charge had sent Captain 

 Eobert A. Bartlett to take command of the 

 sealer Neptune, the third relief vessel which 

 has been chartered in behalf of the Crocker 

 Land Expedition. 



Doctor Hunt left Worth Star Bay on De- 

 cember 18, 1916. He was accompanied by 

 another member of the party, W. Elmer 

 Ekblaw. 



" The steamship Banmarlc," said Doctor 

 Hunt, " which had been sent by the Com- 

 mittee-in-Charge, was at North Star Bay 

 when I began my journey south. Mr. Donald 

 B. MacMillan, leader of the expedition, Pro- 

 fessor Edmund Otis Hovey and Jonathan 

 Small — another member of the party — were at 

 Etah. Their supplies will last until about 

 the 1st of August and the members will then 

 be dependent upon what walrus and caribou 

 meat they could obtain at Etah. They might 

 also get eider-duck eggs. They have very 

 little coffee, sugar and canned fruits and 

 flour was being rationed out. They may get 



some supplies from the Danmarh by sledging 

 a hundred and fifty miles to her. That vessel 

 is in about six feet of ice and possibly she 

 will be freed about the 1st of August. She 

 has stores but is short of coal. I was glad to 

 hear, on my arrival here, that the Committee 

 has already arranged to send the Neptune, 

 such help as is urgently needed. Another year 

 in the Arctic would prove a great hardship 

 to the members of the Expedition and might 

 result in fatality." 



Dr. Hunt and Mr. Ekblaw left North Star 

 Bay with six sledges and were accompanied 

 by five Eskimos. There was deep snow and 

 the weather was generally bad. When they 

 got out on the ice of Melville Bay they found 

 that the winter had been comparatively open 

 and that the ice, which was three inches in 

 thickness and very porous, was continuously 

 bending beneath them. The long sledge 

 journey of fourteen hundred miles, which took 

 from December 18, 1916, until April 16, of 

 this year, was attended by many perils. 

 Knud Easmussen, the Danish explorer, who 

 went part of the way with the scientists, as 

 well as old Eskimos, said that the conditions 

 for sledging were the worst they had ever 

 seen. The later part of the journey was un- 

 dertaken by Dr. Hunt accompanied only by 

 Eskimos, as Mr. Ekblaw remained at South 

 Upernavik. 



Dr. Hunt said that from the scientific 

 point of view the Crocker Land Expedition, 

 which was sent out under the joint auspices 

 of the American Museum of Natural History, 

 the American Geographical Society and the 

 University of Illinois, was obtaining excellent 

 results. 



Mr. Donald B. MacMillan — the leader of the ex- 

 pedition, has gathered an enormous amount of val- 

 uable scientific data. Dr. Hovey, who is probably 

 the best equipped geologist who has ever gone into 

 the Arctic, is in excellent health and spirits and is 

 doing splendid work. He has set up the seismo- 

 graph at Etah and has arranged to make extensive 

 observations of all kinds. 



Captain George B. Comer, the veteran ice-pUot, 

 who was sent north on the first relief expedition, 

 is a man of considerable scientific attainments. 

 When this hale mariner is not engaged in his call- 



