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SCIENC 



[Entered at the Posi-Offlce of New York, N.Y., as Second-Class Matter.J 



A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER OF ALL THE ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



ElOHTH YeAK. 



Vol. XVI. No. 410. 



NEW YORK, December 12, 1890. 



Single Copies, Ten Cents. 

 3.50 Pee Tear, in Advance. 



COAST SURVEY PARTIES IN ALASKA.. 



The United States Coast and Geodetic Survey Office has 

 Teceiced a telegram from their sub-office in San Francisco, 

 Cal., giving the information that an agent of the Alaska 

 Commercial Company had arrived by the last steamer from 

 St. Paul, Alaska, bringing mail from the Coast and Geodetic 

 Survey parties who have been engaged in making explora- 

 tions and surveys on and near the 141st meridian of longi- 

 tude (the boundary between Alaska and the British posses- 

 sions). These two parties were commanded by Messrs. J. E. 

 McGralh and J. H. Turner, assistants of the Coast and Geo- 

 detic Survey. The party under Mr. McGrath ascended the 

 Yukon River to the houndary-line, and there made its head- 

 quarters, while that headed by Mr. Turner went up the Por- 

 -cupine River to the Rampart House (the Hudson Bay Com- 

 pany's trading-post in the vicinity of the boundary), and 

 there camped for the further prosecution of their work. 

 Both parties were at their posts early in the autumn of 

 1889: and with the provisions which they carried with 

 them, and those which were to be forwarded by the 

 Alaska Commercial Company's steamer, they would have 

 Ijeen provided with an ample quantity for fully fifteen 

 months: but the loss of the steamer "Arctic" in 1889, and 

 ■with it a portion of the provisions on which they relied, did 

 not leave much margin for •' high living" in Mr. McGrath's 

 party; but, as he states, " we might have had to test the vir- 

 tue of a very spare diet only for two unexpected resources 

 that turned up. The first was a great crop of turnips that 

 'Mr. McQuesten, agent of the Alaska Commercial Company, 

 raised at the store on Forty Mile Creek during the summer: 

 it was the first time he had made a garden there. The sec- 

 ond was a greater number of deer crossing the trails they 

 have between the Tan' a-nah' and the Yukon Rivers (these 

 trails intersect the valley of Forty-Mile Creek) than was ever 

 before known by white men, and a corresponding abundance 

 of fresh meat." 



Mr. McGrath's party, however, remained at their post, 

 and accomplished all the work which a very stoimy, 

 although not as cold as had been expected, season permitted. 



The records made comprise a set of magnetic and of me- 

 teorological observations for a year; a set of specimens of 

 sediments obtained from filtering certain measured quantities 

 of the water of the Yukon River, made at regular intervals; 

 certain botanical specimens; and a series of photographs. 

 Mr. McGrath also gathered considerable information from 

 some of the most intelligent of the Indians which he en- 

 countered at Forty-Mile Trading-Post, and had them make 

 for him lists of all the Indians from Fort Yukon to Big Lake 

 on the White River, and from the Tan'-a nah' to the' tribu- 

 taries of the Porcupine. These were drawn up in tallies, 

 and arranged according to families. These he turned over 



to Mr. Greenfield (one of Mr. Petroff's deputies) ; and, as 

 some of the tribes had not been reached by Mr. Greenfield, 

 it was of much service to him in making the census enu- 

 meration. 



Owing to the stormy weather, Mr. McGrath was unable to 

 obtain a sufficient number of astronomical observations to 

 justify him in returning this fall; and his party will there- 

 fore remain until next spring, and then descend the river, 

 doing what work they can in the cause of science on their 

 way down. 



Mr. Turner's party were much more favored by the weather 

 than the other party. They completed the necessary astro- 

 nomical observations for the determination of the geographi- 

 cal position of their station on the Porcupine River at the 

 boundary line, also a set of magnetic and meteorological 

 observations, and made a topographic map (on a scale of 

 l:5000j of the river in the vicinity of their camp, and a sur- 

 vey (on a scale of 1:200000) from the boundary to Fort 

 Yukon, a distance of about one hundred miles. 



A small scheme of triangulation was undertaken to locate 

 three monuments placed to mark the boundary-line. An 

 exploring expedition was sent during the months of March 

 and April to explore the line northward to the Arctic Ocean. 

 The party visited Herschel Island. During May another trip 

 was made about forty miles to the southward, as far as 

 Salmon Trout River. 



Mr. Turner reports that the Hudson Bay Company have 

 this summer moved their quarters to a site within the British 

 domain. 



Mr. Turner reached St. Michael's Aug. 30, 1890, with his 

 party, too late to catch the steamer coming south. The 

 party will winter there, and in the spring carry the triangu- 

 lation toward the mouth of the Yukon River, until relieved 

 by orders from the Coast and Geodetic Survey Office. 



Both gentlemen speak in their reports of the uniform and 

 untiring zeal which has been displayed by the officers and 

 men in their parties; and, from this standpoint, it seems as if 

 the subordinates have only tried to emulate their chiefs. 



THE LATEST RESULTS OF ORIENTAL ARCHE- 

 OLOGY.' 



A YEAR ago {Science, Dec. 13. 1889) I gave a short ac- 

 count of the startling archasological discoveries which had 

 just been made in Arabia. The explbrations of Doughty, 

 Euting, Huber, and, above all, Glaser. the inscriptions they 

 had found, and the historical facts disclosed by the decipher- 

 ment of the epigraphic material, have thrown a sudden and 

 unexpected flood of light on a continent which has hitherto been 

 darker even than Central Africa. The members of the last 

 Oriental Congress heard with astonishment that a country 



' Fr m The Contemporary EoYlew. 



