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166 Travellers and Explorers, 1846-1900 "Philippine Independence, When?"; William H. Taft in The Outlook (1902) gives a statement on "Civil Government in the Philippines ' ' ; WilHam B . Freer writes The Philippine Experiences of an American Teacher, A Narrative of Work and Travel in the Philippine Islands (1906) ; and Dean C. Worcester, to whom more than to any other individual belongs the credit for a remarkable achievement by the United States in this far-off region, wrote The Philippine Islands and their People, A Record of Personal Observation and Experience (1898). A most inter- esting and instructive "inside" account is Albert Sonnichsen's Ten Months a Captive among Filipinos (1901). Sonnichsen was not treated badly by Filipinos, and he was fortunate in not falling into the clutches of some of the less developed tribes. An ethnological survey was begun and has been carried for- ward by the bureau having this science in charge. An example of results is the admirable study by Albert Ernest Jenks of The Bontoc Igorot (1905), a volume of 266 pages printed at Manila. These Bontoc Igorots occupy a district near the centre of the northern part of the island of Luzon, and are typical primitive Malayan stock, intelligent and amenable. "I recall," says Mr. Jenks, "with great pleasure the months spent in Bontoc pueblo, and I have a most sincere interest in and respect for the Bontoc Igorot." Besides the outlying possession of the Philippines, the United States became owner by purchase in 1867 of Russian America, afterwards named Alaska. Seward was ridiculed for making such a purchase in the "frozen " north, and it was long derided as Seward's "Ice-box." The vast number of publica- tions favourably describing this region belie this term, and it is now well understood that Seward secured a treasure house for a pittance. Seward's "Address on Alaska at Sitka, August 12, 1869," in Old South Leaflets, Vol. 6, No. 133 (1904) is interesting in this connection. There are a great number of reports, and narra- tives like those of the veteran William H. Dall; Captain W. R. Abercrombie's Alaska, j8gg, Copper River Exploring Expedition (1900) ; Henry T. Allen's Report of an Expedition to the Copper, Tanana, and Koyukuk Rivers in the Territory of Alaska in the Year 1885 (1887) ; M. M. Ballou's The New Eldorado, a Summer