BEOONNAISSANOE IN NORTHERN ALASKA IN 1901. 



Distances along coast from Oolvilh River to Capt Smyth. 



Middle channel of Colville River 



West channel 17 



Cape Halket H7 



Pitt Point 90 



Simpson Cape 137 



Tangent Peak 189 



Point Barrow 198 



Cape Smyth 207 



GEOGRAPHY. 



LOCATION AND GENERAL FEATURES. 



The region here considered, as shown on the outline map, PL I, lies in northern 

 Alaska, mainly in its middle part. The area covered by the detailed maps (Pis. II 

 and III) trends in a nearly northward direction from the sixty-sixth parallel of 

 latitude approximately along - the one hundred and fifty-second meridian to about the 

 seventy -first parallel at the Arctic coast, a distance of about 400 miles. The maps 

 are based entirely on observations made during the present exploration along 

 Koyukuk, John, Anaktuvuk, and Colville rivers, except that to these have been 

 added some notes of observations made by Mr. T. G. Gerdine and the writer in 

 the Koyukuk district in 1899. 



Geographically the region consists of three well-marked provinces — the moun- 

 tain or middle, the Koyukuk or southern, and the Arctic slope or northern. 



Orographically the mountain range, forming the middle province, is regarded 

 as a northwestern continuation of the Rocky Mountain system of the United States, 

 which, extending northwestward through Canada nearly to the Arctic Ocean, bends 

 abruptly to the west beyond the Arctic Circle and trends nearly westward across 

 northern Alaska, forming the great trans- Alaskan watershed between the Yukon 

 Basin on the south and the Arctic Ocean on the north. In its northward and finally 

 westward course the range forms a prominent feature of the "concentric " orographj- 

 of Alaska, and embraces in its southward-facing curve the great basin of the Yukon 

 and the well-known, but not always well-defined, Yukon Plateau. 



From its character and relation to the range, it seems probable that the gently 

 rolling plain bordering the mountains on the north and sloping gently to the Arctic- 

 Ocean may be physiographic-ally correlated with the Great Plains in western United 

 States, while the basin of the Yukon corresponds to the great Interior Basin of 

 the West, lying between the Rocky Mountains and the Coast Range. 



In their trend across Alaska the mountains agree with those in the Canadian 

 territory adjacent to the east, which extend nearly to Mackenzie River. In the 



