Geological Survey Party in Arctic Was Believed to Have Been Marooned.

Dr. Philip S. Smith of the Geological Survey and a party of three Washington engineers who were believed marooned at Point Barrow, on the Arctic coast of Alaska, have started in canoes up the Yukon River to Nanana, the northernmost point of the Alaskan railroad, according to word received yesterday at the Geological Survey offices here.

Dr. Smith, J. B. Mertie, R. K. Lynt and Gerald Fitzgerald, who entered the Colville River basin early in the Spring after a sensational dog-sled journey over the Arctic mountain range, drifted down the stream to Point Barrow, the most northernly point under the Stars and Stripes, arriving early in September. Just how they reached the mouth of the Yukon from this village was not explained in the brief message received here, it is thought probable that they were picked up by some whaler that had got through the abnormal ice along the coast this Summer.