Reserve No. 4

Fame, unsought and perhaps unwelcome, has come to two of the naval petroleum reserves--Teapot Dome and Elk Hills, immortally linked with Harry F. Sinclair and Edward L. Doheny. These reserves may well be envious of their younger brother, reserve No. 4, which is just about to be explored. Last week a telegram reached the Department of the Interior. It stated that Dr. Philip S. Smith of the Geological Survey had just left Nenana, on the Alaskan Railway, with a dozen men and 140 Eskimo dogs, going out into the unknown for U. S. oil.

Naval petroleum reserve No. 4 is about 35,000 square miles in area. North of the Yukon lies a mountain range. North of the mountain range is the reserve.

It is the only polar region in the U. S. In the basin of the Yukon it is warm. There are from 70 to 100 days in the growing season. But over the mountains to the north there are rarely more than 40 days in the year in which there is no killing frost. Not only is it a polar land, it is almost a desert as well. It has less than ten inches of rainfall a year--about the same amount as Arizona or Nevada. There are no trees, only a very little stunted vegetation.

In order to travel there it is necessary to go in Winter while there is sledding. Dr. Smith took with him another geologist and two engineers, men chosen for their ability to bear an arctic Winter. He has 90 dogs to draw his supplies and 50 more to be used by the technical party. Since he may not find coal, or oil seepages, he carries kerosene for five months' cooking. Since he has not time to hunt for caribou, he carries five months' food for his men as well as the rations of his dogs (two pounds of dried salmon a day for each husky). In all he has five tons of supplies and four canoes of the Petersboro type, especially built in Canada from specifications by the Geological Survey.

With these supplies he is now on his 400-mile journey to the field. He expects to reach there in less than two months. At the field there should be good sledding over level country since there is no thaw until June. Before that time comes he must send back his dogs and some of his men. The remaining members will divide into two parties.

When the rivers thaw the two parties will start downstream on the unknown courses of two of the large rivers (one of them the Colville), which flow into the Polar Sea. He may bring back good tidings of oil. He will surely return with a record of adventure.