Donation to the Cabinet: Salt from a manufactory on the Columbia River, near Portland, Oregon, by Mr. Victor.
Regular Meeting, October 21st, 1867.
President in the Chair.
Twenty-three members present.
Mr. J. G. Burt was elected a Resident, and Professor W. D. Alexander, of Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands, a Corresponding Member.
Donation to the Cabinet: A large number of Californian plants, collected and presented by Messrs. Bolander and Kellogg.
Donations to the Library: Humboldt and Bonpland’s Botanical Observations in South America, four vols. 8vo., Paris, 1822, by Mr. Bolander.
Professor Whitney read extracts from letters recently received from Mr. Dall, dated at “St. Michael’s, Russian America, August 14th, 1867,” and addressed to the Academy and to himself. The following are some extracts from these letters:
“I have traveled on snow shoes, with the thermometer from 8° to 40° below zero, about four hundred miles. I have paddled in open canoes up stream six hundred and fifty miles, and down 1,300 miles. I have obtained 4,550 specimens, including a set of the rocks from Fort Youkon to the sea, sufficient to determine the geological formations for 1,300 miles. The only fossiliferous beds are on the Youkon, and they extend about sixty miles. They are brown sandstones, containing bivalve mollusca and vegetable remains. There is a small seam of coal thirty miles below the bend, and thin shale above and below. The coal is of good quality; but there is so little of it that it is worthless. These are the only fossiliferous strata I have thus far found. The rocks above and below are all azoic and nonstratified, excepting a little hard blue or black slate. Granite, and especially mica, are very rare. I found a pebble containing the well known fossils of the Niagara limestone on the beach near Fort Youkon. Fossil wood and bones and teeth of Elephas and Ovibos moschatus are common over the country. There is a broad patch of volcanic eruptive rock on the river near the lower bend, and it extends to the sea. The islands of St. Michael and Stuart are formed of it, and it is roughly columnar on the former near the Fort.”