Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1890-11-21
ALASKA AND ITS slsHoP-ELECT

bishop for Alaska has been received with
some surprise by churchmen who are
unacquanted with the geography, the
climate and the missionary facts of that
territory. Alaska has sometimes been
quizzically called Stewards Folly" the
great statesman who acquired it for the
United States being supposed to have
given several millions of dollars for a
domain of absolutely no value, present
or prospective, to this country. I'm
doubtedly there is large part of Alaska
which can never be either pleasant
place of residence for citizens of the
United States or a source of revenue to
the government. Yet Alaska is so large
a country that large part of it might be
condemned as uninhabitable, and yet
leave much larger domain for profitable
occupation. A recent writer, Mr.. Henry
Il. Finck, in a magnificent work on the
Pacific Coast, published by the Messrs
Scribners, writes as follows
eff Long Island sound could be con-
the coasts of Maine, Newfoundland and
Labrador, as far as the entrance to Hud-
sons bay, so that tourists might 60 all
the way on fast-rver steamers, with state
rooms on the main deck, and without the
slightest risk of sea-sickness; and if this
hypothetc Long Island could be broken
up into several thousand, which, instead
of being fiat and sandy, were covered
with forests of almost tropical luXuri-
ance and with mountains of almost in
finite variety of shape, continually in
creasing in altitude until they eliminated
in two snow peaks higher than Mt.
Blanc, out-runners of the third highest
mountain range in the world, and send
ing clear down into the salt water num-
erous glaciers compared with which
those in Switzerland are mere pigmies,-
if, in other words, the strip of coast
which extends from Tacoma, Washing
ton, to Glacier Bay in Alaska could be
transferred to the Atlantic side, it is safe
to say that at least score of small
steamers, crowded with passengers
would be going up and down this salt
water river all summer long. The At
lantic coast people, however, evenif they
possessed this scenic bonanza, would
hardly be able to enjoy it comfortably on
account of the icy ocean current which
sweeps down Davis strait and chills and
befogs Labrador and Newfoundland,
even in summer. Most persons in the
east seem to imagine that Alaska must
be in a similar, if not worse, predica-
ment; but they reckon without the warm
Japan current which does for Southern
Alaska what the Gulf Stream does fol
the British Islands. Northwestern Alas
ka, indeed, shares with Northern Siberia
the honor of having the coolest climate
in the world but the southeastern por
ton of the coast, as far north as Sitka
has a climate much warmer than that OF
Maine, though Sitka is some fifteen de
grees of latitude north of Portland
Maine. 1t must be born in mind how
vast country Alaska is-as large, ont
writer has calculated, as the origina
thirteen States. A still more graph,
way of realizing its extent is by noting
that from California it is as far to the
Western extremity of Alaska as it is t
New York; so that the central city of tn,
United States is not Omaha or st. Paul
but San Francisco. Fifty years hence
in my humble opinion, San Francisco, OF
the then metropolis of the Pacific coast
will be not only geographically, but il
many other ways the centre of American
life"
The greatest length of Alaska from
east to west , 1900 miles. Its coast lin
extends $4,000, miles, being two and
half times as long as the coast line of tn
whole United States on the Atlantic an,
Pacific coasts together. The southern
coast is vast archipelago of islands o
all dimensions, some of which are know
to be rich in deposits of the preciou
metals. On the east flows the grea
Mackenzie river, mostly through British
territory, but having its mouth in Alask
and emptying into the Polar sea. Tn
great river which drains the Alaska val
ley is the Yukon. 1t rises in chain o
lakes southeast of Mount St. Elias an
flows thence in a stream which is broke
at different points by dangerous rapids
For nearly or quite 1000 miles aboy
Behring Sea, into which it flows, the W
kon is navigable by vessels of light DRAFT
and is from three to seven miles wide
At its mouth it forms delta, like tn
Gauges and the Mississippi, but of grea
err extent, extending for fully seyent
miles, through which il empties itself i
various streams into the sea, 1t is b'
. lieved by some explorers and geograpl
: that in its volume of water the Yukon
the second largest river on the surface {
the globe.
Tho prn1untS of A In sl-a are furS Goa