The economic foundation of Alaska is not sufficiently broad and diversified to be secure. For twenty years past, the economy has been bolstered by heavy expenditures of federal funds, first on the building and manning of large military installations, more recently on the building and manning of DEW-line and BMEWS radar sites. But in the last few years, finding expenditure of military money within the State much reduced, Alaskan businessmen and legislators have become increasingly eager to secure the interest of other agencies capable of investing large sums in programmes of construction and development.

The Geographical Branch is the smallest of six branches of the Canadian Government's Department of Mines and Technical Surveys. Its staff comprises thirty professional geographers and has a total establishment of eighty-five. In addition it has positions for thirty-three students and nine university geographers during the summer field season. As the Branch's responsibilities embrace the full range of geographical studies of Canada, the world's third largest country by area, it has to be selective in its approach. Thus, in 1960, the Baffin Island Project was initiated as its first long-term programme of co-ordinated research in physical geography and allied fields in the natural sciences. This programme is the prime responsibility of the Branch's Division of Physical Geography, which contains about one third of the total professional staff.

It was noted in Table 3 of the first paper that the failure rate of common types of valves is about one half per cent per thousand hours of operation. Some other components are as unreliable as this, but they are not employed in such large numbers in typical electronic equipment so that (at least until very recently) valves are much the commonest cause of electronic equipment failure. The mechanical and electrical tests which valves are required to pass before the Armed Services grant type approval are given in Joint Service Specification K1001, Ministry of Aviation, June 1958. In an analysis of failure reports made in 1953 in the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force, civil aviation, and under typical laboratory conditions, the proportion of faults traced to valves ranged from 45 to 55 per cent of the total. Under conditions of rough handling the average life of valves is likely to be further reduced, more so than for any other common component, so that the number of faults and the proportion of faults due to valves, will be even higher.