220 THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY 



practically uniform at $4.86 to the pound sterling or sovereign. 

 The money in circulation is said to be about S35,000, or equiva- 

 lent to about one dollar per capita, though in the absence of 

 banks or other facilities for determining this with accuracy, these 

 figures are necessarily merely estimates. 



As already indicated, the Samoan islands are vastly more im- 

 portant from their strategic advantages, both commercial and 

 political, than from the sum they can ever contribute to the trade 

 of the world. Lying directly in the route between the Isthmus 

 of Panama and Australia, the Philippines and the Orient, and 

 also in the trade routes between the western coast of the United 

 States and Australia, they are of great importance as ports of 

 call for repairs, supplies, coaling and cable stations, etc., either 

 for merchantmen or war vessels. The harbor at Apia is good 

 under ordinary conditions, though the sad events of 1889, when 

 all the German and American war vessels in that harbor were 

 destroyed, show its unsatisfactory qualities in a severe storm. 

 The harbor of Pago Pago, in the island of Tutuila, which is owned 

 by the United States, is, however, pronounced by experts the best 

 in the South Pacific. 



O. P. Austin. 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY 



The comprehensive work of the United States Government, 

 in connection with the scientific exploration and survey of its 

 vast territory, brings together each winter in the National Cap- 

 ital a larger number of specialists in those several departments of 

 science which are more or less closel}^ related to geography than 

 is to be found in any other city in the world, with possibly one 

 exception. All these workers have traveled far and wide in the 

 prosecution of their researches, and most of them continue to 

 devote all but the winter season of each year to further investi- 

 gations in the field. Without depreciating in the slightest de- 

 gree the contributions to geographic science of other explorers 

 and investigators, it may be said that our knowledge of the 

 geographic features, physical conditions, and natural resources 

 of the United States and Alaska is almost wholly the outcome 

 of the scientific work of the Government. The first explorers 

 of the Grand Canon of the Colorado and of the marvelous re- 

 gion of the Yellowstone; the men who for so many years had 



