The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1899-03-22
To Again Penetrate the Interior Of the Do
main of Ice and Snow.
The Explorers to Go Better
Equipped Than on Former Oc-
casions-The Former Has AL
ready Departed From Washing
ton to Make the Reconnaissance,
While the Latter Will Follow
Within q Few Days.

WASHINGTON, March 21.-Captain
A. r. Abercrombie of the United States
army has left Washington on his third
military reconnaissance into Alaska.
Captain E. F. Glenn, who also has been
directed to make military reconnois-
sance into Alaska, will follow him in a
few days.
The first duty enjoined upon these
officers is to proceed to Montana and
purchase range ponies to be used as
pack animals. No reindeer will accom-
pany the expeditions. The two expedi-
lions named will be the best equipped
of any that have thus far penetrated
that colossal domain of ice and snow.
In addition to better boats will be the
experience already gained in Alaska by
the explorers themselves.
Last summer Captain Abercrombie
explored the Copper River Valley for
the purpose of eSta blishing an all
American route to the Klondike. Cap
tain Glenn's instructions on a previous
trip were to begin his journey at Cook S
Inlet and to discover if possible the
most direct and practicable route from
tide water to one or more crossings of
the Tanana River in the direction of
l.
and Circle City.
He was also expected to discover, if
possible, a passage through the Alaska
mountains, south of Tanana, and eSpe-
cially to cover as much territory as
possible between the Yukon, Tanana,
Copper and Sushitna Rivers.
In this, Captain Glenn and his asso-
ciates did not wholly succeed in their
H.
although they passed through many
trials and great suffering.
Captain Abercrombie, in his report to
the War Department of last summer 5
work, says that the map of Alaska
shows only two lines of travel into that
section of the interior, and both are
confined to the main artery of drain
age, the Yukon River. The southern
route, from Seattle to the Klondike,
or Dawson City, is by trail from Skag-
uay at the head of Lynn Canal over
the White Pass to the headwaters of
the Yukon, which rises in a series of
lakes in a fat. marshy country.
Through this region the construc
ton of a railway will be difficult
problem. AT present the prospectors
take a line of steamers at these lakes,
passing through them into Lewis Riv-
er, thence down to the junction of the
Lewis and Policy Rivers, where orig
mates the Yukon.
Going down the Yukon, the Klondike
region is entered. Dawson City is
reached at a distance of about 57l
miles from the coast AS a means OF
water transportation this route is avail
able for only about four months in the
year.
The northern route from Seattle is
entirely by water, and from St.
Mitchael- at the mouth of the Yukon
follows that stream in a northeaSterly
direction to Fort Yukon. Here at the
mouth of the Porcupine River. it turns
and follows a southeasterly course to
Dawson City.
Captain Abercrombie here remarks
with considerable emphasis that with
Skaguay at the head of the Lynn Ca
nal, Fort Yukon at the mouth of the
Porcupine. and ST. Michael at the
mouth of the Yukon, it will be observed
that this river forms the arc of circle
OF this arc Fort Valdez. on Prince Will
lam Sound, is the axis.
To put it more plainly, he says con-
slider the arc of the circle as a portion
of the felloe of a wheel with Fort Val
dez as the hub Strange as it may APP
pear in making this great curve, the
Yukon parallels almost the trend of the
coast line at a distance of some oW