The results of Greely’s work in the Arctic regions were many. The programme for international scientific work had been carried out daily. All magnetic and climatic changes had been noted. The effect of the sun’s rays, the earth and ocean currents, the atmosphere, electricity, ice, and tides had been observed. A study had been made, also, of the animal and vegetable life of the locality, and of the Eskimos. Both this Circumpolar station and the one established at Point Barrow were abandoned in 1883, but the value of the work accomplished through them was very great. XV. LIEUTENANT SCHWATKA IN ALASKA 1883 Alaska was purchased by the United States from Russia in 1867. It was supposed to be a barren region of ice and snow, and many people thought that the price of $7,200,000 was an amount far in excess of the value of the land. For many years no attempt was made to form a territorial government in Alaska, and the country remained in charge of the military forces of the United States. In 1883, Lieutenant Schwatka determined to conduct an exploring expedition into the interior, for the purpose of gaining such information of the country and its wild inhabitants as would be of assistance to the soldiers stationed there. This expedition did not have the support of Congress and was kept as secret as possible. Lieutenant Schwatka feared that, if attention were attracted to the expedition, Congress would forbid its departure. All Schwatka’s plans worked well. With six companions he left Portland, Oregon, at midnight, May 22, and sailed northward, taking the inland route to Alaska. The inland route consists of a channel which lies between the coast of Washington and British Columbia and southeastern Alaska and the line of islands which lie off that coast. Sitka, then the capital of Alaska, was reached in a little more than a week, and two days later the ship dropped anchor in a pretty port called Pyramid harbor, near the mouth of the Chilkat river. The villages of the Chilkat Indians, consisting of from fifteen to fifty houses each, are built along this river. At these villages Lieutenant Schwatka secured the services of about sixty Indians to go with him on his journey. [Illustration: SITKA, ALASKA, IN 1880.] The party started over a good trail and soon reached Haines’s mission on Chilkoot inlet. Here more Indians were added to the number already employed, and the tramp began over the mountains to the head waters of the Yukon. At first the party traveled through a riverlike channel between high, steep mountains, which were covered nearly to the top with pine, cedar, and spruce trees. The summits were covered with snow and ice, which melted and formed cascades and torrents, and rushed down the slopes, dashing over precipices and flinging spray in all directions.