Geographic Notes 



2I 5 



seaboard. It is claimed that this saving 

 alone will much more than pa>' the total 

 interest upon the cost of the road's 

 construction. 



"It is admitted on every hand that 

 the terminal seaports of the Trans- 

 Canada leave nothing to be desired. 

 The harbor of Port Simpson is said to 

 be the finest on the Pacific coast north 

 of San Francisco. It has the additional 

 advantage of being much nearer to 

 Yokohama than either Vancouver or 

 San Francisco. Nottaway, on James 

 Bajr, which is to be reached by a branch 

 of the main line, is the only deep-water 

 harbor on the bay, and with some 

 dredging might be used by vessels 

 drawing thirty feet of water. The 

 coast line of James and Hudson Bays, 

 tributary to this railway, will be about 

 four thousand miles. Chicoutimi, on 

 the Saguenay, can be reached by vessels 

 of any draught, and Quebec has mag- 

 nificent docks, which have cost the 

 government millions of dollars, with 

 deep-water berth and elevator facilities 

 for steamers of any draught. The new 

 bridge now building over the St Law- 

 rence, at Quebec, will enable the Trans- 

 Canada road to make use of St John 

 and Halifax for winter ports if ever 

 those of Quebec and Chicoutimi should 

 be blocked by ice." 



EXPEDITION TO TURKESTAN 



DR RAPHAEL PUMPELLY is on 

 his way to Turkestan on a most 

 important scientific mission. His jour- 

 ney is for the purpose of looking over 

 the ground in Turkestan with reference 

 to a combined physico-geographical and 

 archaeological exploration, if such fur- 

 ther work should be found to be prom- 

 ising as to results and practicable as 

 regards execution. 



It has been his wish to see this done 

 for forty years, and the results obtained 

 by Russian surveys in recent years in 

 connection with some parts of the prob- 



lem have strengthened his belief that 

 the region offers a field of the greatest 

 interest in connection with the relation 

 between the growth and changes — so- 

 cial, economic, and ethnological — of 

 nations and measurable changes in their 

 environment. 



The journey is made under the aus- 

 pices of the Carnegie Institution. Prof. 

 W. M. Davis, of Harvard, will have 

 charge of the physical geographical part 

 of the problem and will meet him on the 

 Caspian early in May. In the meantime 

 Dr Pumpelly has gone to St Petersburg 

 to obtain the permission of the Russian 

 Government, on whose willingness and 

 sympathy all depends. 



GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 



THE Survey has begun an experi- 

 ment which will doubtless prove 

 of great practical service to the mining 

 interests of the country. Heretofore the 

 explorations of the geologists of the Sur- 

 vey have not been available until one to 

 two years after the explorations were 

 made. To prepare and to publish the 

 complete report of a season's work takes 

 considerable time. By the new arrange- 

 ment such results of the season's work as 

 have direct economic importance are to 

 be published at once in advance of the 

 purely scientific investigations. This 

 plan has been begun by the publication 

 of a bulletin (No. 213) which summa- 

 rizes the work of economic character 

 done in 1902. The bulletin, says Dr 

 C. Willard Hayes in the preface, "is 

 designed to meet the wants of the busy 

 man, and is so condensed that he will 

 be able to obtain results and reach con- 

 clusions with a minimum expenditure 

 of time and energy. It also affords a 

 better idea of the work which the Sur- 

 vey as an organization is carrying on 

 for the direct advancement of mining 

 interests throughout the country than 

 can readily be obtained from the more 

 voluminous reports." 



