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Show i ' - .11. . ..?.. w- - " '... - p . - - . .- I i I. O . . i, s. A O . ill . r.els and drifts cfln be run in all directions direc-tions and at all dtfths. . "Accordlr.p.to On v. I;rady of the Territory Ter-ritory there are ? .0 1) Indians in the Territory and CO.C.J whites; but this Is merely an estimate. There is mighty little civilization there; modern conveniences con-veniences ere also lacking. Coal, copper cop-per and tin in larKe Quantities will in future engag-e capital; now It is gold. "Whnt do you thir.k of this for traveling? trav-eling? None of your railroads can equal the record in one of our longest summer sum-mer days. I left Skafcway one morning after breakfast, traveled 2000 miles and reached Nome on Bering sea at dark of the same day. And I did not have the help of a twentieth century limited, lim-ited, either. I pushed into the Arctic' circle on this trip and traveled in the charmed zone two hours. It was as light at midnight as at noon here on a fairly overcast day. I read my newspaper news-paper with eaie. Our steamer was seventy-two hours. on a sandbank of the Yukon flats: stayed there till another an-other steamer, came along and towed us off. . t , . . ....;' Wo Trees at Home. "There are no trees at Nome. The ground is covered -with tundra; the miners mi-ners call it 'niggerhead.' What is tundra? tun-dra? It is a sort of growth that covers the ground, for miles and miles to a depth of eighteen inches or two feet. The ground 1b frozen beneath thl tun. Or.e cf the most interesting and vigorous vig-orous rT'Ti.iVUes.of the pre?er.t T'cth-odlst T'cth-odlst conTerence In Salt Lake is Dr. A. D. Leonard, secretary of the Methodist Eflscopal Missionary society, whose home 13 now New York City. Dr. Leonard Leon-ard la fillghtly pat middle life, but has all the vigor and force of en Abraham Lincoln. And It was by the exercise of Just such, physical and mental force as the martyr President was noted for that has placed Dr. Leonard in the exalted ex-alted position he holds today. It was in the prohibition fights that rent Kansas, Kan-sas, to the qore and gave her the sobriquet so-briquet of "Bleeding Kansas" 'that Dr. Leonard first came into prominence. lie took one horn of the dilemma the prohibition pro-hibition end and fought It like a bag of wildcats! " - . - Dr. Leonard is Just back from a ten, weeks' trip to the land of the midnight sun, having visited Dawson, the Yukon, Nome, the new gold field at Fairbanks, in the interest of his society. Gold Only Incentive. ' "While the frosen North undoubtedly undoubted-ly offei-s Inducements to the agriculturist agricul-turist of the future it la safe to say that the, only incentive there now is g.old. But It is wonderful the good things the earth can be made to produce pro-duce in the short season. I left New York on May 29 and soon after arrived at Bgagway. I we'nt by rail across White pass along the trail which the plnoeer miners used to reach White Horse at the headwaters of the Yukon. This Is the head of navigation. I went to. Dawson, which is In Yukon territory, terri-tory, a possession of Canada, by steamer. steam-er. ... . . , - - j "Three hundred milesfurther is Fairbanks, Fair-banks, on the Tanana river. This is where the new gold strike waa made two years ago. Thence I went down the Tanana to the Yukon, thence down that river to-its mouth across Norton sound to Nome on Bering sea. Great River System. . ' "The Yukon river system Is the greatest great-est river system on the Western hemisphere, hemis-phere, saving only the Amazon. This should give one a fair idea of the magnitude mag-nitude of the country. It discharges far more water into Bering -sea than the Mississippi does Into the Gulf of Mexico. Two feet below the surface, the ground is frozen solid and no one has ever yet penetrated through this Ice crust, If indeed it Is simply a crust. Judge Craig of the. Supreme court of Yukon Territory is my authority for the statement that miners have penetrated pene-trated 120 feet into the frozen ground without reaching through it Dr. Grant pastor of the .Presbyterian church in Dawson, says he knows of a shaft being be-ing sunk 260 . feet without passing through the frozen earth. The miners now have a method of sinking pipes full of perforations into the frosen earth and then turning on steam.' This thaws 4he ice and by this means tun- dra and the capillary attraction of the tundra keeps it mucky, , mushy and oozy. It is hard walking. "At Ketchikan, on Tanana river, I was told that the fishermen at one haul ' of the nets pulled 40.000 salmon up on the beach. I did not see thia myself but my informant is a gentleman of 'unimpeachable 'unim-peachable credibility and I do not hes- i ltate to assert its truth. There are J some fir and birch trees. They grow on i the surface and have no tap root. The ' trees are very straight and from six to twelve inches in diameter. Fairbanks is a town of log cabins; there are a few frame houses In the business part of the town. They had a real estate boom on. but one could easily see that there waa an undercurrent of distrust among the citizens. I had a good view of Mt McKlnley, 20,200 feet high. Extent of Country. - "To form an estimate of the size of this midnight land I made a comparison compari-son and arrived at this: Alaska Is large enough to allow the introduction of thirteen Ohios. three New. Jerseys, three Connecticutts and then have 843 square miles to spare." .Dr. Leonard talks interestingly of the work of the mission. "We appropriated appropriat-ed $1,700,000 last year: 42H per cent of this waa spent in the United States, the remainder in foreign countries. We have 4000 home missionaries who receive re-ceive their salaries in whole or in part from the missionary society. We have BOO missionaries - In foreign countries. In Germajny and Switzerland we have three annual conferences with 28,000 communicants. Tn Scandinavia Norway. Nor-way. Sweden and Denmark we have three onnrtal conferences and 27.000 communicants. In China we have five mission schools and 30,000 communicants. communi-cants. These are at .Hln-Hua, Foo-chow. Foo-chow. Central China, West China and North China. ,ln Japan there are two annual conference's and 8000 communicants. communi-cants. In- Korea- we have a mission conference and 8000 communicants. , . Flourishing in Asia. , "In southern Asia we have eight annual an-nual conferences and 150.000 communicants. communi-cants. The man who baptized the first communicant Is still living; the mission mis-sion was founded in 1856.- Next year we celebrate our semi-centennial; I expect ex-pect to attend. In Africa we have three missions. They are in Liberia, the province of Angola and East Central Africa in Rhodesia. We have about E000 communicants. In South America i we have two annual conferences, a mission mis-sion conference and 6000 communicants, the South American conference lying east of the Andes; the Andes conference Is on the west coast and Includes Chile and some other parts. The Andes con- I ference includes " Peru and' all Central America. ' ' "In Mexico we have one annual conference con-ference with nearly 6000 communicants. In Italy an annual conference and 4000 communicants; In Bulgaria we have a mission conference and S00 communicants. communi-cants. In Finland, a province of Russia, Rus-sia, we have a mission with 1500 communicants." com-municants." - |
