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Show OUR UNKNOWN EMPIRE. Dr. Sheldon Jackson's fresh and interesting book on Alaska should put an end to the ridicule that has been so persistently directed against the late Secretary Seward because of his acquisition of that remote territory, and its incorporation in the Union. Instead of being an unproductive and useless icebound desert, Dr. Jackson shows from his own careful observations, supplemented by the researches of Mr. Dali, of the Smithsonian Institution; Mr. Baker, of the coast survey; Professors Powell, Noarse and others, that the southern portion of the immense tract, or nearly a moiety of the 600,000 square miles comprised in Alaska, is fertile and salubrious, and that its climate is as temperate and more equable than that of the Middle States. The vegetable productions of the Northern and Middle States grow on its soil as luxuriantly as anywhere in the United States, and its resources of everything needful for existence and commerce - of timber, coast, copper, iron, gold, plumbago,, and other minerals - are some of them unlimitable, and others sufficiently abundant to give full employment to enterprise and to insure a prosperous future to the country. In addition to the resources contained in or dependent upon its soil, the seas that surround Alaska, the vast rivers that penetrate it - one of these rivers - the Yukon, is over 2,000 miles long and seventy miles wide at its mouth - and the boundless forests that cover its mountains abound in seal, fish and fur-bearing animals, which already give profitable employment to large numbers and make an important contribution to the commerce and industry of the nation. Alaska is as large as all of the United States east of the Mississippi and north of Alabama, George and South Carolina. Its extremest island, Attu, is the Aleutian Archipelago, is as far west of San Francisco as the coast of Maine is east of the city. Its extreme breadth from east to west is 2,200 miles and from north to south 1,400; and its shore-line up and down the bars and around the islands is 25,000 miles, so that its coast, if extended in a straight line, would belt the globe. It is the great island region of the United States; its islands, over one thousand in number, rise abruptly out of the ocean to a height of one thousand to eight thousand feet, the channels between them in some places less that a quarter of a mile wide, and yet too deep to afford anchorage. This great archipelago forms one of the most remarkable stretches on inland ocean navigation in the world; its island shores are bold and indented with innumerable bays and harbors; they have an abundance of fuel and water, and they afford perfect shelter from the swells of the ocean. The voyager may enjoy among them an ocean sail of 1,000 miles without encountering peril or even seasickness. Moreover, Alaska is the great glacier region, some of its glaciers being vastly greater and grander than thos of the Alps; and its hot and minerals springs are on an enormous scale, one of them being a huge boiling and steaming caldron eighteen miles in circumference. What with its wonderful natural curiosities, its peculiar invitations by land and water to pleasure seeking or scientific travelers, its unlimitable resources, and its strange native populations, Alaska offers inducements for travel, for pleasure, and for business, that are not likely to be disregarded by the enterprising and adventurous. - Harpers Magazine. |
