Show OUR NORTHERN TERRITORY The coast and geodetic survey of tho United States now has two expeditions on the way to the northern country having in view the defining of tho boundary between Canada and Alaska This means the identification and establishment of the 141st meridian for a distance of about seven hundred miles from the southern coast near Mount St Elias to the shores of the Arctic ocean It will take about a year and a half to completo the task The greater portion of the route will be through a difficult and dangerous country crossing as it will the wide mountain region where tho Rocky mountains in the northeastern prolongation are divided into four or five p rallel ranges North of the mighty Yjkon river the surveyors will come into the Tundra which extends to the Arctic ocean The surveyors will do all they can this season which will not be much as the winter time is about to open up there and nothing can be done then through the inclemency of the weather and the obstacles created thereby All the coming fall and winter season the surveyors will hibernate among the snows and ice of a desolate country where perhaps per-haps human feet have never trod before and about June next the work will be recommenced re-commenced with a will and carried forward for-ward to completion before stopping again Tho most important practical result of the expedition will be fixing the boundary line through the goldbearing region of the Yukon valley This portion of the territory terri-tory in which the parties wil operate is populated to some extent with miners who at present do not know which country they are inthe United States or Canada The government of the latter think we have placed the boundary line about ninety miles too far east and if this should prove correct wo have been drawing pretty freely on British gold for some time and were not aware oi it Apart from all these considerations is the sent i mental one that neither Great Britain nor our own country cares about losing any real property because since the acquisition i I tion of Alaska and that long archipelago which on tho map resembles 51 String of sausages and is known as the Aleutian islands the former nation for the first timo in its history has a rival in the matter I of having perpetual sunshine on her dominions domi-nions When the last rays of the evening sun fall on the most westerli of our islands 11 the morning sun is about ail hour high on the most easterly point on the coast of I Maine 1 1 |