FOREWORD 



The series of reports of which this is Volume XIV, and the fifth complete 

 volume to be issued, will give the narrative and scientific results of the Canadian 

 Arctic Expedition, 1913-18. The expedition, under the command of Mr. 

 Vilhjalmur Stefansson, was originally planned to remain in the field from 1913 

 to 1916, and earlier publications refer to it as the Canadian Arctic Expedition, 

 1913-16. Although many members of the scientific staff were oflScers of the 

 Geological Survey of the Department of Mines, the general direction of the 

 ^expedition for administrative purpose was placed in the hands of the Depart- 

 ment of the Naval Service. 



As the expedition was planned to work in two comparatively distinct fields 

 at some distance from each other, it was divided into two parties. The Northern 

 Party, whose field was primarily the Beaufort sea and the Arctic archipelago, 

 remained in the field from 1913 to 1918 under the immediate supervision of 

 Mr. V. Stefansson. The work of the Southern Party was confined more par- 

 ticularly to the Arctic mainland and the adjacent islands, under the direction 

 of Dr. R. M. Anderson, and returned in the autumn of 1916. General accounts 

 of the work of the two main parties and subsidiary parties, rostef s of the scientific 

 staffs and a portion of their contributions to the results of the expedition have 

 been briefly given in various summary reports to the Government and in popular 

 narrative and will be summed up in the forthcoming Volume I of this series. 



In order to have the scientific results of the expedition properly worked 

 up, the specimens distributed to specialists, and the reports adequately pub- 

 lished, an Arctic Biological Committee was appointed jointly by the Department 

 of the Naval Service and the Department of Mines in January, 1917. This 

 committee consisted of Chairman, Professor E. E. Prince, F.R.S.C., D.Sc, 

 Dominion Commissioner of Fisheries; Secretary, James M. Macoun, C.M.G., 

 F.L.S., Botanist and Chief of the Biological Division of the Geological Survey; 

 Professor A. B. Macallum, F.R.S.C, M.D., D.Sc, Ph.D., LL.D., Chairman of 

 the Commission for Scientific and Industrial Research (later professor of bio- 

 chemistry at McGill University); C. Gordon Hewitt, F.R.S.C, D.Sc, Dominion 

 Entomologist and Consulting Zoologist of the Department of Agriculture; and 

 R. M. Anderson, Ph. D., Zoologist of the Geological Survey (later Chief, Division 

 of Biology, Victoria Memorial Museum), representing the expedition and the 

 National Museum of Canada, the final depository of the specimens collected by 

 the expedition. Various members of the committee took up the editing of 

 different sections, and Dr. R. M. Anderson was appointed general editor of the 

 reports. 



The Committee has been at work for over eight years and reports have 

 been prepared or are in preparation by seventy-five specialists. Dr. Hewitt 

 had virtually finished his work on Volume III (Insects) before his untimely 

 death on February 29, 1920, but Mr. Macoun had not completed his work on the 

 botanical volumes at the time of his death on January 6, 1920. The scope of 

 the committee was later enlarged to include the geological, topographical, and 

 anthropological work of the expedition and three new members were added in 

 1920, namely A. G. Huntsman, F.R.S.C, Ph.D., of the Biological Board of 

 Canada; Edward Sapir, F.R.S.C, Ph.D., Chief of the Division of Anthropology, 

 ! Victoria Memorial Museum; and M. 0. Malte, Ph.D., Dominion Agrostologist 

 and Honorary Curator (later Chief Botanist) of the National Herbarium. 



88540-1} 3 



