R

ECENT discoveries in Egypt have carried the record of Egyptian civilization back definitely for 1,000 years and have given light to what was happening during 1,coo years more. In other words, Egyptian history has been brought to light for nearly 2,000 years before the building of the pyramids, which happened about 4000 B. C. As Prof. W. M. FlindersPetrie, in an article in Harper's Magazine for October, says, “We even know what was going on in every generation for some 2,000 years before that time [building of the pyramids] far more than the later Egyptians themselves knew."

It is the discoveries of treasures of gold and ivory and beautiful stones in the royal tombs at Abydos through the persevering and efficient efforts of Prof. Flinders-Petrie and members of his party that have brought to light the history of this remote past. The oldest record of human history is the statement that ten kings reigned in Abydos, in upper Egypt, during the 350 years before Mena (4777 B. C.), who founded the united kingdom of the whole land and is counted as the first king of the first dynasty. Four of the tombs of these earliest kings were identified several years ago, as well as those of Mena and his successors, but their significance was not understood until this spring, when a large number of small objects were found in the tombs at Abydos. The most surprising discovery were four bracelets belonging to the Queen of King Zer, about 4700 B. C., some 2,000 years earlier than any other jewelry thus far identified. The bracelets were wrought with the most ingenious and delicate workmanship. Even a magnifier did not reveal the joints, so perfect was the soldering. The finest bracelet is formed of alternate plaques of gold and tur

quois, each surmounted with the royal hawk and paneled to imitate the front of the tomb or palace.

It seems marvelous that the jewelry had not been previously discovered. In early times the tombs were broken into and ransacked. Some plunderer had broken up the queen's body, and being disturbed in his plundering had broken off an arm of the mummy and thrust it into a crevice in the wall. Centuries later, about 1400 B. C., the tomb was cleaned out and a shrine of Osiris built in it, and for a thousand years every visitor passed within a few feet of the fragment. Two thousand years later the Copts utterly destroyed the shrine and the other royal tombs, and yet the arm lay untouched. Three years ago a French explorer carefully examined the whole space, and yet the arm remained unseen until one of Dr. Flinders-Petrie's workmen noticed it and called his attention to it. The arm was opened carefully and the bracelets revealed.

Professor Flinders-Petrie believes that during the 57 years of King Zer's reign a rapid crystallization of art took place. Before his reign everything was archaic and tentative, but afterward vigorous and perfect. He believes "this sudden fixation of the final forms is what is also seen in Greek art, where the interval of 40 years between the Persian war and the Parthenon sufficed for the step from archaic work to the highest perfection, after which all else was a gradual decay." Fragments were found of hundreds of different forms of vases cut in hard stones. In the tombs of one of the kings of the second dynasty, about 4373 B. C., were seven stone basins with gold covers, a whole dinner service in thin beaten copper, and over a hundred models of food. Another prize was a royal scepter formed of cylinders of rich red sard held together by a copper rod

in the center and bound around by seven gold rods. The handle end was lost; but this is the only ancient scepter known before that of Tarentum, 4,000 years later. Several miles to the north of Abydos were this year discovered the royal tombs of a king several centuries later, with eighteen chambers sixty feet under ground.

Thus the egyptologist has now identified the names of king after king in those ancient times which were "as old in the days of Exodus as the Exodus is in our time." As Professor FlindersPetrie says, the historian now knows "far more about the civilization of these oldest known kings than we do about our own Saxon kings of England."

Ο

FF the coast of Alaska, near Cook Inlet, is a large island which has had trouble with its name-trouble with its spelling, trouble with its pronunciation.

The spelling now adopted by the U. S. Board on Geographic Names is Kodiak (pronounced Kō'-di-ak), this being a reversal of the decision Kadiak made by the same Board about 10 years ago. The universal local usage as to this name is Kodiak. Such, also, is the general usage on the Pacific coast.

It

is this widely extended and firmly established usage which has led the Board to discard an alleged "correct" form and adopt an alleged "corrupt" form which local usage has firmly established.

Kodiak is a large island about 100 miles long by 50 miles wide. Its principal town (population in 1900 341) was called St. Paul by the Russians, and is now called both St. Paul and Kodiak. The post-office in this town, established in August, 1888, is called Kodiak.

The island was discovered by Stephen Glotof, a Russian fur hunter, who anchored in Alitak (Kaniat) Bay, in the southwestern part of the island, on September 8, 1763. He learned from the natives that the called Kikhtak. word for island."

island was by them Kíkhtŭk is the Innuit Petrof says: " "Kikhtak or Kikhtowik is the Innuit word for island. At the present day

(1886) the natives of the peninsula speak of the Kadiak people simply as Kikhtagamutes, islanders. The tribal name appears to have been Kaniag, and the Russian appellation now in use was probably derived from both."

Martin Sauer,' who wrote the account of Billings' expedition, 1785-1794, says: "Shelikof has called this island Kichtak as the original name of it, in which, however, he is mistaken, for Kichtak or Kightak is merely an island; they call the Trinity Island Kightak Sichtunak, thus, Kightak Kadiak; and to my astonishment one of them called Alaska a Kightak or island."

Cook, in 1778, got the name Kodiak from the Russian Ismailof. This spelling was followed by Meares, 1788, Vancouver, 1794, and Langsdorf, 1804, who has Kodiak, Kadjak, or Kuktak—i. e., Great Island. The British Admiralty charts, Nos. 260, 278, 787, 2172, 2460, and 2558, followed the spelling Kodiak. Sauer,' about 1790, has Kadiak, and so also has Lutke, 1836. Dixon, 1789, has Kodiac and Codiac; Lisianski, 1804, has Cadiack. At the time of the purchase of Alaska the form Kodiak (pronounced Kō'-dy-ak) was in general use among English-speaking people, and the same form, Kodiak (pronounced Kǎd-yǎk), was in general use among the Russians. Dall" says:

"The Russian O when not accented

should be rendered in English by A; from the neglect of this (comes) Kódiak instead of Kadiák."

Also, he says:

"Kadiǎk.-The name of the largest island south of Aliáska. It is a derivative, according to some authors, from the Russian Kádia, a large tub; more probably, however, it is a corruption of Kaniág, the ancient Innuit name. The inhabitants, according to Coxe, called themselves Kaniágist or Kaniágmut. This name is almost invariably misspelled by English authors as Kodiak, Codiac, Codiack, Kadiack, and in other similarly absurd ways. The above is the only correct spelling."

The spelling of this name was submitted to the Board on Geographic Names in 1890 and the form Kadiak adopted. Local usage has, however, remained Kodiak, both in form and pronunciation, while the pronunciation Ka'-dy-ak is often heard from the lips.

ORIGIN OF THE NAME "CAPE NOME"

DU

URING the last four years I have had numerous inquiries concerning the origin of the name Cape Nome, on the northwest coast of Norton Sound, Alaska. I searched every available chart and narrative of that region to trace it home.

I traced it back to Admiralty Chart No. 2172, of 1853, as being the earliest to use the name. It is not in the Great Atlas of Tebénkof of 1848-'52, devoted to the North Pacific.

I looked up the tracks of the Sir John Franklin rescue ships, H. M. frigate Herald and brig Plover (1845-'51), and became satisfied the name was given in the cruises of one or other of those vessels.

A short time since I wrote to the

chief hydrographer of the Admiralty and asked if the name Nome appeared among the lists of officers of the Herald and Plover.

Today I have a letter from the hydrographer of the Admiralty, dated London, August 9, which contains this

statement:

"When the MS. chart of this region was being constructed on board H. M. S. Herald, attention was drawn to the fact that this point had no name, and a mark (? Name) was placed against it.

"In the hurry of dispatching this chart from the ship this? appears to have been inked in by a rough draughtsman and appeared as Cape Name, but the stroke of the "a" being very indistinct, it was interpreted by our draughtsman here as C. Nome, and has appeared with this name ever since.

"This information is from an officer who was on board the Herald when the chart was being constructed."

So the mystery of the name has been satisfactorily solved.

GEORGE DAVIDSON,
Department of Geography,
University of California.

EXPLORATIONS IN ALASKA

Tour important parties at work in

HE U. S. Geological Survey had

As a

Alaska during the past season. result, large sections of territory previously unmapped and but little known have been well explored geologically and topographically.

The first party, under command of Mr. W. J. Peters, assisted by Mr. F. C. Schrader, left Seattle early in February. They went by trail from Skagway to White Horse, and then pushed on with dog teams 1,200 miles to Bergman, a trading post on the Koyukuk River. The year previous a cache of canoes and provisions had been made at this point in anticipation of the trips which the party under Mr. Peters and another under Mr. Mendenhall were to make. The party then advanced about 100 miles, to the summit of the divide between the Yukon and the Arctic Ocean, to select the best route to the ocean. Here they made a portage of several miles across to the waters of Colville River, which they followed to the Arctic Ocean. After leaving Bergman they were in territory that had previously not been penetrated and was entirely unknown. Mr. Peters reports that rolling tundra extends from the mountains to the ocean. original plan for the party was on reaching the Arctic Ocean to turn east, and then return to Bergman over land, but the season was so late that Mr. Peters decided to proceed westward. The party obtained some small canoes from the natives and pushed along the shore to Point Barrow. Here they obtained a whaling boat, which they hoped would enable them to reach Cape Nome. When 350 miles down the coast they fortunately fell in with a collier, which shortened

The

the remainder of the journey to Cape Nome.

The second party, under Mr. T. G. Gerdine, assisted by Mr. A. J. Collier, sailed from Seattle June 1 with twelve pack animals and reached Nome in the middle of June. They found the season there very backward, so that it was several days before they were able to begin active work. The last week in June they proceeded in small boats to Teller, about one hundred miles to the northwest, the pack train following them along the beach. The mapping of Seward Peninsula, including the whole of the Nome mining district, begun last year, was brought to a successful termination.

The third party, under Mr. W. C. Mendenhall, assisted by Mr. D. L. Reaburn, starting from Fort Yukon, made a survey of the Yukon River as far as the Dall River and up the Dall River to the portage across to Old Man River, and down this river to Bergman. Here they also made use of the cache placed there the year before. From here they proceeded up the Allashook River, and then down the Kowak to Kotzebue Sound. The territory that they passed through after leaving Bergman was unknown. The party has not yet returned to Washington, so that further information about their work cannot be had.

The fourth party, under Mr. A. H. Brooks, worked in southeastern Alaska. For two months Mr. Brooks' labors were on Prince of Wales Island and the mainland to the northeast, investigating the mineral resources of the country. He reports much development of the country in progress. Another month was passed in making a reconnaissance of the region to the north extending from Juneau to Skagway.

CERTAIN PERSISTENT ERRORS IN GEOGRAPHY

IT

T is strange that many legends which a generation ago were accepted as true, but which have long since been disproved by geographers, should still be accepted by the general public, and even included in many geographic textbooks. Mr. Henry Gannett, in a recent article in the Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, enumerates a number of these errors and shows wherein they are at fault.

It is a persistent idea that the presence or absence of forests has an influence upon the amount of rainfall. The arid and desert regions of the world, more particularly the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, have been cited as the result of man's wanton destruction of forests. In this case, however, the absence of forests is not the cause but the result of the desert. The geographic nature of the Mediterranean region, the configuration of the land and water, and the prevailing winds are of such nature as to permit only of a light rainfall. These conditions have existed for many thousands and perhaps for millions of years, and from the nature of the mountains, cliffs, and cañons of the region it is apparent that they have been evolved in a dry rather than in a moist climate.

A second widespread error is that the floods of our rivers have recently been much greater and more frequent than in former years, also due to destruction of the forests. The cutting away of forests is usually, however, followed by a thick growth of bushes and underbrush, which holds the water as effectively. Mr. Gannett cites the case of the Ohio River as a proof that the floods are not more frequent in recent years. This river has been gauged continuously, and the gaugings show very little change. Whatever change has taken place in the forest areas of its basin.

Another error is the citing the existence of fiords as a proof that the coast has been sinking. These gorges are partially filled by the sea, and it has been argued that they must necessarily have been cut when they were above the sea-level. On the coast of Alaska we now have similar fiords in the process of formation by glaciers which at their lower ends are often hundreds of feet beneath the surface of the water. Undoubtedly the Norwegian fiords were likewise cut by glaciers extending below the surface of the water. The coast of Norway may be sinking, but the fiords are not evidence of it.

Mr. Gannett believes that perhaps the most prevalent error concerns climate. It is generally believed that the mild. climate of Western Europe is produced by the Gulf Stream, which washes its shores; that the severity of climate in the northeastern part of the United States is a result of a current from the Arctic flowing along the coast, and that the mild climate of Northwestern America is induced by the Japan Current, also sweeping down the coast. Each of these beliefs is based upon the supposition of a great body of water moving thousands. of miles in one steady stream. matter of fact, both the Gulf Stream and the Japan Current lose their velocity long before they reach their supposed destination, and the Arctic current is proved not to exist. Mr. Gannett then proceeds to explain the conditions of the climate of these representative portions. of the earth as follows: The land absorbs heat rapidly and as rapidly gives it off, while the water absorbs heat slowly and holds its heat longer. The sea has

As a

a much more uniform temperature because of its constant motion. The prevalent winds of the northwestern coast of Europe blow from the sea, which is warmer than the land in winter and cooler than the land in summer; hence the mildness of England's climate in summer and winter. The prevalent