Personal and Scientific Nezus. 395 
sition of Avalanche basin. This glacier rises to the hight 
of several hundred feet above the face of a lofty cliff, over 
which portions of the glacier are constantly falling, with 
tremendous reports which are heard for a long distance. 
This glacier is a part of the southward flow of the ice cap 
which covers almost the whole of the Blackfoot mountain, 
The Blackfoot glacier flows northeastwardly from the peak 
of Blackfoot mountain, six or seven miles long and three or 
four miles wide. Another glacier flows northerly between 
Mt. Kainah and Mt. Jackson, while from Mt. Jackson, the 
highest of all these mountains, a number of smaller glaciers 
flow down to the timber line. Another glacier of consider- 
able dimensions lies in Pinchot's basin, southward from Mt. 
Jackson. 
Dr. Otto Nordenskjold, Upsala, returning from Alaska 
where he has spent the summer, passed two days at Minne- 
apolis recently. Dr. Nordenskjold has now seen the ex- 
tremes of the western hemisphere, having spent last year in 
southern Patagonia and Terra del Fuego. His reports on 
these expeditions are awaited with much interest. 
Mr. J. E. Spurr, in the service of the U. S. Geol. Survey, 
has also recenth' returned from Alaska, stopping at Minne- 
apolis en route to Washington. He left Seattle with a part}- 
of seven April 4, and was picked up by the steamer Dora 
Oct. 31 at Katmai, which was the last trip of the last steam- 
er from the northern portion of Alaska for the season of 1898. 
By waN^ of Cook's inlet, Mr. Spurr reached the Sushitna, and 
then the Kuskokwim, descending the latter. Then he ascend- 
ed the Kanektok to Togiak lake from which he descended the 
Togiak river. Then partly b}- a coastal route and partly by 
small rivers he reached Nushagak, from which he went 
across Bristol bay, via Naknek river and lake and over the 
Alaskan peninsula to Katmai where he was making prepara- 
tions for a possible winter sojourn when he was unexpectedl)' 
rescued by the Dora on her last trip. 
The Metric System. The following bill, approved b\- 
the Committee on Coinage, Weights and Measures, is pend- 
ing in Congress: 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representati\es of the 
United .States of America in Congress assembled, That from and after 
the first day of July, nineteen hundred, all the departments of the Gov- 
ernment of the United States, in the transaction of all business requirinj^ 
the use of weights and measurement, except in comiileting the survey of 
the public lands, shall einploy and use only the weights and measures of 
the metric system, and from said first day of July, nineteen hundred, the 
metric system of weights and measures shall be the legal standard of 
weights and measures recognized in the United States. 
