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Show MllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllHllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll Alaska Has Disclosed to an Astonished World Its Wealth and Possibilities By J. J. UNDERWOOD, in "Alaska, an Empire in the Making." The years that have passed since Alaska came into the possession of the United States have disclosed to an astonished world its great wealth and wonderful possibilities. Its auriferous gravels have yielded untold treasure ; its colonies of seal aiid other mammals have loaded the markets with valuable and beautiful furs; its seas have given up their wealth of food fishes; its barren tundras have presented us the nucleus of the reindeer rein-deer industry and taught a lesson in the civilization of savage tribes; its agricultural possibilities promise returns in excess of all expectations; its unmeasured timber areas will furnish wood pulp and lumber long after other forests have been exhausted ; and its undelved coal-mines suggest a national opulence beyond the dreams of avarice. It may sound like a wild dream to gay that within a few years, European immigrants, instead of landing at New York, will land on the Faeifio coast, to make productive the unoccupied areas of land in the West and in Alaska. But it is a dream that likely will come true, for Alaska is capable of raising every pound of beef, every sort of vegetable, and every pound of butter or other dairy product that her people will need till the white population increases to two hundred times its present number. |
