The Canning River Region, Northern Alaska.

Washington: Government Printing Office, 1919. First edition. 29 cm; 251 pages, XXXV plates (some folded, including 6 maps in rear pocket). LACKS TITLE PAGE. Freshly bound in sturdy buckram, titled in gilt on spine.

Professional paper of the U. S. Geological Survey. Leffingwell led the science staff in the 1901 Baldwin-Ziegler Polar Expedition, which failed in its attempt to reach the North Pole. On this expedition, he became friends with Danish explorer Ejnar Mikkelsen. Subsequently, the two raised funds for their own expedition. Leffingwell's father, who had become wealthy from his ownership of a fruit ranch in California, contributed $5000, and Mikkelsen raised a comparable amount in England and New York. Their venture became the Anglo-American Polar Expedition of 1906–1908 which aimed to explore the Beaufort Sea. At that time, many experts believed than an undiscovered land mass lay in this region, since such a mass could account for observed patterns of arctic currents and tides. The underfunded expedition fared badly but achieved some positive results. No new land was discovered, but they delineated part of the continental shelf and Leffingwell began his mapping efforts. Their ship was locked in pack ice and destroyed, but they salvaged the wood to build a cabin which Leffingwell used intermittently through 1914. Mikkelsen returned to the US in 1907, but Leffingwell remained on the Arctic coast for another year.