Copyright by Frederick A. Stokes Company The power by which supplies for the Crocker Land expedition will be transported through the 330 miles from Flagler Sound to Cape Thomas Hubbard Opening a can of pemmican. The expedition will procure dogs for the sledges on the way north after leaving Sydney. Nova Scotia, as well as whale and walrus meat to supplement the supply of pemmican IN SEARCH OF CROCKER LAND 87 solving the problem of the process of land-molding under a continuous, moving ice cap, since the process is not yet understood, and the "glacial fringe" off the north coast of Grant Land offers a particularly interesting field for study. Wherever possible the expedition will collect Arctic small mammals and fishes, for these are little represented in collections, and also birds, for no habitat group of Arctic birds has been attempted in any of our museums. The following is the itinerary as planned: The expedition will leave Sydney, Nova Scotia, by special steamer about July 20, 1912, procuring dogs for the sledges on the way northward and whale and walrus meat. It will land on the south side of Bache Peninsula (Flagler Bay), lat. 79° 10′ N., and will there establish winter quarters, sending the ship home. About the middle of September sledging operations can begin for the purpose of getting supplies to Cape Thomas Hubbard, which work can be carried on throughout the winter during the moonlight periods. With the advent of dawn in February, 1913, the journey will be made from Cape Thomas Hubbard across the ice to Crocker Land. The return trip will be begun about May first, and on reaching Cape Thomas Hubbard again, a messenger will be sent to North Star Bay with news of the expedition, to be forwarded by Danish steamer to civilization. After this, the scientific work will progress in Grant Land and along the return route to the former winter quarters on Flagler Bay, where arrival may be expected in July, 1913. Then during the summer, supplies and collections will be transferred to Etah, from which point the expedition will move in the spring by way of Whale Sound (Inglefield Gulf) directly eastward to the summit of the ice cap of Greenland, at the widest part of that island. The return to New York is planned for the autumn of 1914 and by special ship. The leaders of the expedition will be George Borup (A. B. Yale, 1907), assistant curator of geology in the Museum, and Donald B. MacMillan (A. M. Bowdoin, 1910). They will take with them a competent physician, a cook and a veteran general assistant. Messrs. Borup and MacMillan are wellknown to both the general and scientific public as members of the last polar expedition under Admiral Peary, and through Mr. Borup's book, A Tenderfoot with Peary and Mr. MacMillan's lectures given throughout the country. These men have received Peary's unqualified indorsement for the work in hand. Mr. Borup has been devoting his whole attention during the past two and a half years to studies in the field and at Yale thoroughly to fit himself for scientific geological and geographical exploration. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society of London and a member of the New York Academy of Sciences. Mr. MacMillan since his return from the Peary expedition, has been studying ethnology and practical astronomy at Harvard. In the summer of 1910, he was a member of the Cabot Party which was the first to cross Central Labrador from the sea to George River, and he 88 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL spent the summer of 1911 cruising along the coast of Labrador in an eighteenfoot open canoe studying the Eskimo from Hopedale to Killinek (lat. 60° N.). He is a member of the American Geographical Society and of the Appalachian Mountain Club. The following are some of the principal items of the outfit that must be provided for this expedition: three years' provisions for five white men with their helpers and dogs, much of which, particularly the pemmican, has to be especially prepared and packed; suitable clothing; instruments for all kinds of observations and records; photographic supplies including a camera for moving pictures; a power boat for use in Flagler Bay and in crossing to Etah; salary of physician and wages of cook and helpers; a steamship to take the party to Flagler Bay in 1912 and another to go up for it in 1914. It is estimated that not less than fifty thousand dollars must be provided for the absolute needs of the expedition, in order to enable it to accomplish the valuable results that have been outlined above, and this in spite of the fact that Messrs. Borup and MacMillan generously serve the expedition without salary during the period of its absence from New York. In addition to the appropriations made by the Museum and the Geographical Society, subscriptions have already been made or promised by Yale University, Bowdoin College, the New York Academy of Sciences, Worcester Academy and Groton School, and by the following individuals: General Thomas H. Hubbard, Admiral R. E. Peary, Mrs. C. B. Alexander, Zenas Crane, John E. Thayer, Theodore Roosevelt, Mrs. G. B. French, Harry E. Converse, Andrew G. Weeks, Richard S. Dow, Herbert Austen, Robert P. Simpson, John Larkin, E. W. Clark, L. H. Greenwood, J. Sanford Barnes, Jr., Paul B. Morgan, Samuel Rea, W. W. Atterbury and Lewis A. Platt. The honorary committee on the Crocker Land expedition consists of Henry Fairfield Osborn, president of the American Museum of Natural History; Chandler Robbins, chairman of the Council of the American Geographical Society, and Thomas H. Hubbard, president of the Peary Arctic Club. The committee in charge comprises, E. O. Hovey, American Museum of Natural History and H. L. Bridgman, Peary Arctic Club. 1 There remains to be raised about thirty thousand dollars, and the Museum has opened an account, known as the "Crocker Land Expedition Fund" for the purpose of receiving and caring for all subscriptions made to the expedition. Checks to further its purpose should be drawn payable to the American Museum of Natural History and forwarded to E. O. Hovey of the Crocker Land Expedition Committee, to whom, furthermore, all correspondence relating to the expedition should be addressed. "A Dog Feast was offered by the Sioux chiefs of the Upper Missouri, in 1832, to Mr. Sanford (the Indian agent), Pierre Choteau, K McKenzie, and the author. The greatest pledge of respect and friendship the Indians can give to strangers in their country is in the 'Dog Feast,' in which the flesh of their favorite dogs must necessarily be served." [This is the artist's inscription on his painting] T THE CATLIN PAINTINGS By Clark Wissler HE famous cartoon collection of Indian sketches in oil made by George Catlin, the celebrated Indian writer and painter, has been purchased for the Museum by Mr. Ogden Mills. These canvases, left at the death of the artist in 1872 in the possession of his daughter, Miss Elizabeth W. Catlin, who still resides in New York City, have great historical value because they are the earliest authentic sketches representing the customs, ceremonies and habitations of the wild Indian tribes. When Catlin visited these tribes they were practically uninfluenced by civilization: it was a time when Indian life was real, not transitional as later. Mr. Deming, the well-known artist says regarding the work, "I have known Indians for forty years and have seen many who were very little influenced by contact with the white man and I can vouch for the truthfulness of these pictures. They are, outside of Bodmer's and Captain Eastman's pictures, the only record we have of the Plains Indians and are valuable as a pictorial record. I want to speak of another view which the scientist does not appreciate. These Catlin pictures are the most decorative Indian pictures 1 The collection contains 417 pictures 118 showing types of North American Indians, 112, customs of North American Indians. 19, ceremonies of North American Indians, 28 are landscapes and hunting scenes, and 19 depict South American natives and landscapes, while 49 treat of miscellaneous subjects. Among the latter is a series of 24 representing the life history of the famous La Salle and his wanderings up and down the Mississippi. Some 250 of the sketches portray types and scenes from American Indian life as observed among the different tribes of the Missouri Valley from 1832-1840. Many of them are the original paintings for the plates in the author's well-known books. TURTLE HUNT BY TORCHLIGHT A painting of the South American series, with weird color effect, the flame of the torches alone bringing out the action of the figures and the out- Acting upon a suggestion from Humboldt, Catlin sailed for Venezuela, passed into the interior and over into the valley of the Amazon. For |