2 
IXTRODUCTOR Y 
be the aim of the National Geographic Magazine to he American 
rather than cosmopolitan, and in an especial degree to be National. 
There is hardly a United States citizen whose name has become 
identified with Arctic exploration, with the Bering sea contro- 
versy, or with the Alaska boundary dispute who is not an active 
member of the National Geographic Society and a contributor to 
the pages of its magazine. In the Army and Navy the Society 
is also well represented, and from the gallant and accomplished 
ofificers of those important branches of the service it receives from 
time to time much valuable information. The principal officers 
and experts of the different scientific bureaus of the Govern- 
ment — the Geological Survey, the Coast and Geodetic Survey, 
the Smithsonian Institution, the National Museum, the Hydro- 
graphic Office, the Naval Observatory, the "Weather Bureau, the 
Bureau of American Ethnology, the Biological Division of the 
Department of Agriculture, and others — have always been among 
the most active members of the Society, and^the great work that 
is being done by these several bureaus — a work that is at once 
the wonder and admiration of foreign scientii^ts — will be regu- 
larly discussed in the pages of the magazine by those who are in 
close touch with if not actually engaged in it. Turning from 
our own country to the sister republics of the two Americas, we 
find almost all of them connected with the Society in the persons' 
of their diplomatic representatives, and through the cordial coop- 
eration of these gentlemen the magazine will receive from time 
to time the latest and most authentic geographic intelligence con- 
cerning countries in which the people of the United States are 
now taking an exceedingly keen and friendly interest. That the 
magazine will not reach at a single liound the high standard at 
which those responsible for its management are aiming will 
scarcely be a disappointment either to its editors or its readers. 
The measure of its success, however, will not wholly depend 
upon the efforts of those conducting it. Nothing less than the 
generous support of that numerous class of the community which 
is interested in one or another of the different branches of geo- 
graphic science will enable the National Geograidiic Society to 
make its magazine everything that it ought to lie and pro}ierly 
equip it for the discharge of its function as The ^Magazine of 
American Geography. To possess a knowledge of the condi- 
tions and possibilities of one’s own country is surely no small 
part of an enlightened patriotism, and to the })atriotic imi)ulses 
of the American people no appeal was ever made in vain. 
