1 62 The National Geographic Magazine 



detail the entire range. They have de- 

 termined incidentally that it includes 

 at least eight peaks, -with altitudes 

 of 12,000 feet or more, and several 

 other summits which rise to above 

 10,000 feet. Two of these peaks, Mount 

 Blackburn and Mount Sanford, are over 

 16,000 feet in height, but the most in- 

 teresting of all is perhaps the active 

 volcano, Mount Wrangell, 14,000 feet 

 high. This peak is a great, flat vol- 

 canic dome, whose crater near the sum- 

 mit is 8,000 feet above the line of per- 

 petual snow. At irregular but frequent 

 intervals, puffs of steam and smoke, 

 with showers of fine cinder, issue from 

 this crater, and as a result many of the 

 glaciers flowing from its southwestern 

 slope are black with the included soot 

 and ash instead of being clear blue, like 

 glacial ice generally. 



Detailed topographic maps, showing 

 the location, relative positions, forms, 

 and altitudes of the various neaks of 

 the range, are in course of preparation 

 and will be issued soon with geologic 

 reports of the region. A table of alti- 

 tudes of a few of the highest peaks is 

 presented : 



Mt Sanford i6,2oS 



Mt Blackburn 16,140 



Mt Wrangell 14,005 



Mt Regal 13,400 



*MtJarvis 12,230 



Mt Drum 12,002 



SCOTTISH ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION 



THE Chief of the U. S. Weather 

 Bureau has just received a letter 

 from the Scottish Antarctic Expedition, 

 dated January 24th at the Falkland 

 Islands, acknowledging the receipt of 

 assistance from the Weather Bureau. 

 The writer, Mr R. C. Mossman, meteor- 

 ologist to the expedition, states : " We 

 leave here tomorrow ori the Antarctic 



* Named for Lieut. David H. Jarvis, Col- 

 lector of Customs, Sitka, Alaska, and leader 

 of the Point Barrow overland expedition of 

 iSa7-'o8. 



ship Scotia for the Weddell Sea,* push- 

 ing south along the 30th parallel of 

 west longitude and wintering in the ice. 

 We do not expect to return here before 

 February or March of next year (1904). 

 I hope to be able to contribute some- 

 thing to the United States Monthly- 

 Weather Review. We shall concentrate 

 on kite work as much as circumstances 

 permit, as we have a complete outfit of 

 meteorographs, kites, etc., on board. 

 (This outfit is modeled after that of 

 the U. S. Weather Bureau.) There is, 

 we believe, some possibility of losing a 

 record by the freezing of the ink, as- 

 we have not the newly invented ink 

 containing tonsol." 



SURVEY OF THE GRAND CANYON 



THE demand from scientists and 

 tourists for an accurate and de- 

 tailed map of the famous Grand Canyon 

 of the Colorado has led to a resurvey of 

 this region by the United States Geolog- 

 ical Survey, under the charge of Fran- 

 cois E. Matthes, topographer. The 

 Grand Canyon, formerly reached onlj r 

 by a stage route over a desert country, 

 has recently been made accessible by a 

 branch line from Williams, and during 

 the one year that this road has been in 

 operation the canyon has been visited 

 by thousands of tourists. 



The survey plans to publish a series 

 of atlas sheets covering the entire ex- 

 tent of the Grand Canyon proper and 



* The Weddell Sea, so named after Captain 

 James Weddell, who made numerous sealing 

 voyages and wrote on the possibility of reach- 

 ing the South Pole According to the eminent 

 geographer, E. S- Balch, of Philadelphia, in 

 his latest book, "Antarctica," Weddell Sea 

 was originally called George the Fourth's Sea 

 by Captain Weddell. He sailed over it in 

 1823 and found not a particle of ice, and he 

 thought it a portion of the Antarctic Polar 

 Sea. It probabh' represents only the southern 

 end of the Atlantic Ocean, between the merid- 

 ian of Greenwich and longitude 60° W. Ac- 

 cording to Weddell's voyage, this region was- 

 all open water as far south as latitude 75 

 south. 



