I 8 JOHN BURROUGHS 



transport the hunters and their traps inland and to pack 

 out the big game. The hold of our ship looked like a 

 farmer's barnyard. We heard the mellow low of the red 

 steer even in the wilds of Bering Sea, but the morning 

 crow of our cockerels was hushed long before that time. 

 And I may here anticipate events so far as to say that the 

 horses proved a superfluity, their only association with 

 game being the two fox skins for which Mr. Harriman 

 traded them at Kadiak. But this was no ignoble ending 

 as they were choice pelts of the rare and coveted black 

 fox. Besides the live stock just mentioned, an inventory 

 of our equipment would include one steam and two naphtha 

 launches, boats and folding canvas canoes, tents, sleeping 

 bags, camp outfits, and in fact everything such an expedi- 

 tion could possibly need. Our completed party now 

 numbered over forty persons besides the crew and the 

 officers of the ship (126 persons in all), and embraced col- 

 lege professors from both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts 

 — botanists, zoologists, geologists, and other specialists, 

 besides artists, photographers, two physicians, one trained 

 nurse, one doctor of divinity, and at least one dreamer. 



Dr. Dall was our Alaska specialist, having previously 

 visited the territory thirteen times and having spent many 

 years there. In John Muir we had an authority on glaciers, 

 and a thorough one — so thorough that he would not allow 

 the rest of the party to have an opinion on the subject. The 

 Indians used to call him the Great Ice Chief. Dr. Fer- 

 now was our professor of forestry and might be called the 

 Great Tree Chief. Then what Professors Emerson, Pal- 

 ache, and Gilbert could not tell us about the geology of 

 the country, or Brewer and Gannett about the climate and 

 physical geography, or Coville and Trelease about the 

 plants, or Ritter and Saunders about the life in the sea, or 

 Merriam about the mammals, or Ridgway and Fisher 

 about the birds, or Elliot about the game birds, or Dever- 



