January 17, 1896.] 



SCIENGE. 



enumerate the results, either general or 

 scientific, directly or indirectly consequent 

 upon the expedition. The present sum- 

 maiy may therefore serve a useful purpose. 



The most important result which indi- 

 rectly came about from the explorations by' 

 our parties was the acquisition of Alaska 

 by the United States. While the transfer 

 might have been proposed and the question 

 discussed if there never had been any tele- 

 graph expedition, yet I believe, in view of 

 the opposition which existed in Congress 

 and the cheap ridicule of part of the daily 

 press, that if it had not been for the inter- 

 est excited by the expedition and the infor- 

 mation which its members were able to 

 furnish to the friends of the purchase the 

 proposition would have failed to win ap- 

 proval. 



But, leaving such questions apart and con- 

 sidering merely the scientific results, the ex- 

 pedition made weighty additions to geo- 

 graphical knowledge. To it we owe the 

 first mapping of the Yukon from actual ex- 

 ploration, adding to the list of American 

 rivers one of the largest known . Old maps 

 of North America made the Eocky moun- 

 tains extend in nearly a straight line north- 

 ward to the Polar sea. Our explorations 

 showed that the mountains curved to the 

 westward, leaving a gap to the northward 

 through which the Canadian fauna reached 

 to the shores of the Pacific and Bering sea. 

 The general faunal distribution of life at 

 this end of the continent in its broader 

 sense was settled then and there. A gen- 

 eral knowledge of the country, till then 

 practically unknown except to a few fur 

 traders, was obtained and made public. To 

 the Coast Survey work of 1871-'74 we owe 

 some forty charts, a large proportion of 

 which are of harbors or passages never pre- 

 viously surveyed. In preparing a Coast 

 Pilot of southeastern Alaska, while that 

 part of it useful to navigators was in the 

 nature of things rapidly superseded, yet the 



work, being conscientious and thorough in 

 the matter of names, practically settled the 

 geographic nomenclature of that region for 

 all time. The myth of a branch of the 

 Kuro Siwo or Japanese warm current run- 

 ning north through Bering sea and strait 

 and producing open water in the Polar sea 

 still lingers in some dark corners of geo- 

 graphic literature ; but our researches, 

 covering actual observation, the whole 

 literature, and scores of old manuscript log- 

 books, conclusively show that there is no 

 such current as that referred to, and that 

 the currents which do exist have no con- 

 nection whatever with the Japanese stream. 

 Meteorological observations were kept up 

 in all those years, and afterward a complete 

 synopsis of all the recorded meteorological 

 data for that region was prepared and issued 

 by the Coast Survey with abundant illus- 

 trations. One of the results of the mag- 

 netic observations made by our party, in 

 the endeavor to correct the discrej)ancies 

 between the variation of the compass needle 

 as shown on the charts of Bering sea and 

 strait and those observed by present navi- 

 gators, was the discovery that the needle 

 had reached its easternmost elongation and 

 had for some time been receding in the 

 amount of its variation. In gathering con- 

 firmatory data during 1874 and 1880 more 

 than forty -stations in all parts of the Terri- 

 tory were occupied. As in the case of the 

 meteorology, the literature and all practi- 

 cable sources were ransacked for magnetic 

 records,* and these, with our own observa- 

 tions, were utilized in the excellent discus- 

 sions of Alaskan magnetism by Dr. C. A. 

 Schott. 



In geology we were tutored before sailing 

 in 1865 by Prof. Agassiz and carried with 

 lis a written schedule of observations to be 

 made on the glaciers. Our explorations 

 showed that north of the Alaskan moun- 



*Tliis work was almost entirely done by Mr. Mar- 

 cus Baker. 



