The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1897-08-18

snow, where, during part of the sum!
mer, there is continuous day and dur
ing the winter continuous, dreary
night. The Alaskan coast line is
greater than our Atlantic seaboard, but
the entire population of whites, Eski-
mos and fierce Indians, who are called
the Apaches of the north, is not much
more than that of a ward division in
Chicago.
In acquiring the Alaskan Territory,
though the United States moved its
center, figured in geographical miles,
not in area or population, as far west
as San Francisco. The country now
extends from about the sixty-ffth de-
gree of longitude up at the far east
corner Of Maine to the 122d degree up
at the far northwest tip Of the Alaskan
mainland. This is taking no account
of the little island of Attn, 1000 miles
out in the Pacific, beyond the Hawaiian
group, which, since the purchase Of
Alaska, has really been our western
land limit.
The United States, therefore, may
almost say with England that the sun
neve sets on its possessions.
The principal river in Alaska, the
Yukon, up which prospectors have to
work their weary way to reach the
gold fields was called by Schwatka, the
Alaskan Nile. It rises a little more
than 200 miles above Sitka, in the
southern part of Alaska, and then
strikes northward, following q broad
circle to the west before it empties
into Bering Sea through an extensive
delta. Six hundred miles in from the
coast it is more than a mile wide and
the volume of its water is SO great as
to freshen the ocean ten miles outfrom
land.
The principal cities of Alaska are
Juneau and Sitka. They are both
thriving towns, and probably they will
thrive from now on, for q time at least,
as they have never thriven before.
Alaska is ruled by a Territorial Gov
ernor, who just now is J. G. Brady,
recently appointed by President Nc
Kinley to succeed James A. Sheakley.
The Governors residence is in Sitka.
The citizens up in that frozen coun-
try do not vote for President of course,
being under Territorial government,
but they do send delegates to the Ma
tional political conventions. The judi
cial function there is exercised by a
district court, established in 1884.
The court sits alternately at Sitka and
Wrangle. How odd for a court to sit
at Sitka and Wrangle.]
And speaking of Wrangle, among the
things Alaska has done for this coun-
try aside from stirring up the present
gold excitement one of the most for
ward was to involve it in disputes with
England on the boundary question and
the seal fisheries business.
Both of these disputes threatened
war, but white-winged peace settled
over the situation in each case and
brought the suggestion of that newly
invented English-American institution
arbitration. However, the boundary
question is not settledyet, and the Brit
ish lion is even now roaring a little and
angrily swishing its tail because of a
diplomatic (the British call it undiplo-
matic) note from Secretary of State
Sherman demanding that British YES
sells 'keep off the grass" as it were in
the seal fishing grounds.
The Boundary Question.
1t was not unexpected, of course,
that the discovery of gold in the Klon-
dixie region would revive in a measure