GEOGRAPHIC LITERATURE 



Explorations in the Far North. By Frank Russell. Report of an expedi- 

 tion under the auspices of the University of Iowa during the years 

 1892, '93, and '94. Published by the University. 1898. 8°, pp. i-ix 

 4- 1-290. Illustrated with portrait, route map, and numerous plates. 

 The record of one of the most difficult and exciting (albeit easily the 

 most modest of all) explorations of the Arctic interior of North America, 

 this book is attractive reading. The author, an assistant in the Univer- 

 sity of Iowa, conceived the idea of making natural history collections in 

 the practically unknown country toward the Arctic circle ; with a little 

 help from the University, he entered the wilderness, "lived Indian'' for 

 a couple of years, acquired the native methods of hunting the musk ox, 

 and amassed for the University the best collection of musk ox material 

 in the country, if not in the world. Incidentally, he made valuable ob- 

 servations on the natural history and ethnology of the country north of 

 the Great Slave lake and east of Great Bear lake, winding up his work 

 with a nearly solitary canoe voyage down Mackenzie river, and thence, 

 through open ocean to Herschel island, where he just made connection 

 with a whaling fleet on the eve of departure. This final juncture ended 

 the chapter of fortunate accidents of which the book is a simple and un- 

 pretentious recital ; for the survivals from starvation and storm, from 

 wounded animals and treacherous natives, from desperate exhaustion 

 and insidious freezing, from engulfment in muskeg pools and hidden 

 ice crevasses, from wrecking in rapids and capsizing in surf, form a suc- 

 cession of surprises. There is not a boastful sentence in the book ; yet 

 between lines the author writes himself down one of the most successful 

 explorers of frigid barrens, able to live and write and photograph and 

 collect natural history material where earlier explorers starved and froze, 

 and thus to demonstrate the physical as well as the intellectual superior- 

 ity of the white man over Eskimo and Athapaskan even under their 

 own special environment. Eight chapters, or half the book, are devoted 

 chiefly to somewhat desultory itinerary; then follow four ethnologic 

 chapters, and a sixty-page monograph on the natural history of the re- 

 gion, with a full index to the entire work. W J M. 



The Adirondack Spruce. A Study of the Forest in Ne ha-sa-ne Park, with 

 Tables of Volume and Yield and a Working-plan for conservative 

 Lumbering. By Gifford Pinchot. New York: The Critic Company. 

 189S. 18mo, pp. i-v, 1-157, 27 pis. 

 This neat booklet of 165 pages and two dozen handsome plates is ad- 

 dressed especially to the owners and operators of spruce lands in eastern 

 United States ; so it abounds in eminently practical facts, figures, and 

 forest pictures. At the same time, it is a sign of the times — it is a tangible 

 evidence of growing interest in our forest resources, and a promise of in- 

 creasing! v intelligent effort to maintain and utilize these resources through 



