GEOGRAPHY. 



39 



region north of the mountains, both in Canadian territory and in Alaska, the valleys 

 trend northward toward the Arctic coast, while those on the south trend southwest- 

 ward toward the Yukon. 



Considering the country more in detail, we may note that the line of profile 

 extending- through the region as a whole, in a north-south direction (see PI. II), 

 beo-inning on the south, at the sixty-sixth parallel, traverses for the first 120 miles of 

 its course an undulating country whose low, rounded hills attain elevations of from 

 1,000 to 3,000 feet. It then crosses a rugged range of mountains 100 miles wide and 

 about 6,000 feet high, whence it descends steeply to the elevation of 2,500 feet at the 

 inland edge of a gently northward-sloping plateau or rolling plains country (PL IV). 

 It then traverses this rolling plain for SO miles, and thence passes for about 80 miles 

 throuo-h a nearly flat, tundra country or coastal plain to the Arctic coast. 



To facilitate description each province will be treated separately. 



MOUNTAIN PROVINCE. 



The most striking is the middle or mountain province, which, as noted, consists 

 of an inland range of rugged mountains trending east and west across the field 

 between latitudes 67° 10' and 68° 25', as shown on the topographic map, PI. II. 

 These mountains here have a width of about 100 miles and an average elevation of 

 about 6,000 feet. 



It is unfortunate that the term Alaskan has already been applied to a local 

 range lying south of the Yukon, as that name would seem to be the most fitting term 

 by which to designate this portion of the great Rocky Mountain system, which here 

 extends east and west entirely across the northern part of the Territory. That these 

 mountains are regarded as a northwestward continuation of the Rocky Mountain 

 system has been noted, and the term Rocky Mountains has been broadly applied to 

 them on the map. 



That portion of the main range lying between the international boundary and 

 Mackenzie River has been called the Davidson Mountains, while to the several 

 small groups on the north, between the main range and the coast, and extending from 

 the one hundred and thirty-eighth to the one hundred and forty-eighth meridians, 

 the names Richardson, Buckland, British, Romanzotf, and Franklin have been applied. 

 They are all probably more or less closely connected with the main range, from 

 the northern side of whose great bend to the southwest between Mackenzie River 

 and Colville River they seem to branch. So far as known they trend in a general 

 northwestward direction, but have a somewhat imbricated relationship, each group 

 tending to overlap the inland part of the one next to the west. They seem to rep- 

 resent the northward dying out of the range near the Arctic coast. If they are con- 

 sidered a part of the range in the region of the one hundred and forty -seventh 



