Such, in brief, is the white man's history of the Yukon, with all of which the river remains but half known, at best. It has never been fully surveyed, which would be a vast and unending task. It contains a large number of barely known little tributaries that are lost in the jungle-covered flats with their many pools and lakes. It has innumerable islands and channels, in which the traveler is easily lost, and it cuts and builds constantly during the open season. Its valley is squally and rainy. The stream may one moment be like a great, liquid, softly flowing mirror, to be in a few minutes churned into an ugly and dangerous roughness from which every smaller boat must seek shelter. Its shores are inhospitable, except for the native fisherman and hunter, and torment man with swarms of gnats and mosquitoes. But there is no malaria; no snakes or other poisonous things. And when the weather is decent the water, the wooded shores, and the fresh, clean virginal parklike islands have a greatness and charm that compensate for much. Besides which there is the still more intensive allure of original exploration. Botany, zoology, and above all paleontology, find here still a fruitful field, while for anthropology, and especially archeology, the land is still largely a terra incognita. FOOTNOTES: [15] There is some confusion about the exact date of Glazunof's journey, partly due perhaps to the fact that he started on Dec. 30. Wrangell (Stat. and Ethnog. Nachricht., 138) says that Glazunof's expedition was outfitted the same year (1833) in which the St. Michael redoubt was established. In Zeleny's abstract of Zagoskin's report (p. 212) and by Zagoskin himself (pp. 6, 23) the departure of the expedition is put a year later, or 1834, which is probably correct. Dall's remarks (Alaska and Its Resources, 276, 338) on the subject contain several errors, both of dates and facts. There is also considerable confusion as to the names Kvikhpak and Yukon. The term Kvikhpak (Kvikh, river; pak, large) is of Eskimo origin and was applied by these to that part of the river which they occupied. The name Yukon, or something near this, is of Indian derivation and was applied to those parts of the river, below Tanana at least, that were peopled by the Khotana or Indians. [16] Richardson, J., Arctic Searching Expedition, London, 1851, II, 206. [17] For details see Dall's Alaska and Its Resources, Boston, 1870. [18] See Compilation of Explorations in Alaska, Senate Rept. 1023, Washington, 1900; and reports on Alaska of the United States Geological Survey. THE YUKON NATIVES