INTRODUCTION 



In the early spring of 1899 Mr. Edward H. Harriman 

 of New York, in cooperation with the Washington Acad- 

 emy of Sciences but entirely at his own expense, organ- 

 ized an expedition to Alaska. He invited as his guests 

 three artists and twenty-five men of science, representing 

 various branches of research and including well known 

 professors in universities on both sides of the continent, 

 and leaders in several branches of Government scientific 

 work. Those from the east left New York by special 

 train May 23, 1899; those from the far west joined the 

 party at Portland and Seattle a week later. In crossing 

 the continent side trips were made to Shoshone Falls, 

 Boise City, and Lewiston, Idaho. At Lewiston the party 

 was met by a special steamer and conveyed down the 

 canyon of Snake River to its mouth in the Columbia, 

 where the train was in waiting. 



The Expedition sailed from Seattle May 30, on the 

 steamship ' Geo. W. Elder,' especially chartered for the 

 purpose, and was gone just two months. From Puget 

 Sound to Juneau and Lynn Canal the vessel threaded her 

 way northward among the forested islands and fiords of 

 the i inside passages '; at Sitka she entered the open ocean 

 and took a northwesterly course in front of the stupendous 

 glaciers and snow-capped peaks of the Fairweather and 

 St. Elias ranges; at Cook Inlet she changed her course 

 from northwest to southwest and skirted the Alaska Pen- 

 insula and Aleutian Islands, touching the emerald shores of 

 Kadiak and the Shumagins; at Unalaska she again turned 

 her prow northward, entered the troubled waters and 



( XXV ) 



