Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1901-03-17

manager of the Alaska~Lodes Nl.--
Company, recently organized in this
city with an authorized capital OF four
million dollars, and in which a large
number of local people are interested,
Mr. o. T. Schneider being president,
w. C. Eberts, vice president, James M.
Collins, secretary, and Charles Aui,
treasurer, and which numbers among
the directorate such well known people
as Albert M. Schenk, Louis H. Bach
mann, Ralph Kline and William Weiss,
talked entertainingly yesterday to a
Register reporter concerning southern
Alaska, in which the property of the
is located, and to which MI.
Egerter will return some time during
the coming month of April. In re-
Spouse to questions Mr.. Egerter said:
Alaska in general is greatly misun-
derstood by people in this portion Oh
the country, and Southern Alaska is
particularly misunderstood. 1t is not
the dreary land of snow and ice and
awayIbeloW-zerO temperatures usually
imagined. To be sure, We have cold
weather-so do We have it in Wheel
ing. | believe two years ago we had
% or % below here, and Al below at
points but a few miles away, in West
Virginia and Ohio. Now, we don't
often have a much lower temperature
than that up there, but when it is sea-
sonable for cold it is cold and remains
so. There is practically no spring or
fall, as we understand it here-you go
suddenly from cold to warm weather.
Cold weather begins in our section
about October, LIST, and lasts until about
the first OF May. On the mountains,
of course, there is always snow, and In
the interior the snow lies longer than
on the coast.
81 wish to give you, and through the
Register the people of Wheeling, an
idea of the country surrounding Land
lock Bay, in Prince William Sound. 1t
is not the bleak, desolate region held
in popular conception, by any means.
First, as to geography, We are about
400 miles north Of Seattle and about
400 miles from Juneaus. Copper noun
tain, where our mine is located, is in
side of Handbook Bay, which is con-
nected with the open sea by a narrow
pQI dCCP AS 0os 10 oDOuN
two miles wide, by two and one-half or
three miles long, and can float the
largest ships, deep water extending
right UP to me shore line. where the
precipitous mountains come down to
meet the tide. The mine is on the
northwest side of the bay, with a good
wharf. We are twelve miles from Ella
mar, where the ocean steamers make
regular stops, and about fifty miles
from Valdez in one direction and the
same distance from Orca, a large sal
mon canning station, in the other. At
Orca they put up about $4,000 cases Of
salmon each season. We have fire.
quent communication with the States,
as we are reached by steamers of the
Alaska Commercial Co, the Pacific
Steam Whaling Co., and the Alaska
Mail steamship Co. from Seattle,
Wash, Alaska Commercial Co.'S steam
ers leaving Seattle on the Sth of each
month, ana Pacific Whaling ~Company's
steamer leaving on the 25th.; Alaska
Mail Steamship Company's steamer
leaving Juneau on the End of each
month, and running direct to Ellamar,
Prince Williams Sound, thence by
small boat to the mouth of the shaft,
which is but a few feet from deep tide
water.
Il have said the country is heavily
timbered. That is Literally true. There
is much more timber in sight than in
the country about Wheeling, or any
where lea il. We cut logs Is inches
through in erecting our cabin and
general quarters, and there are much
larger trees, while the u~nderbrush and
small timber is thick. There is mer-
chantaole lumber on the stump to meet
any possible demand for many years to
come. The country, of course. is
rough until you pass the coast range,
and the mountains come right down to
the sea, except where the rivers come
in, and their valleys are generally i'm
| passlD,e, except the Youkon.
Our property embraces twenty acres
of ground, being a full claim. COOK
1,500 feet. and the ledge, carrying the
richest deposits of copper. gold and
| silver yet found in the Prince William
Sound territory, runs northeast and
| southwest. We have made exposures
| running over 700 feet, and they show
| good values, mill tests and analysis
showing from 500 to 800 per ton, and
our snaft, over thirty feet deep In Oc-
| tober last, was developing an increased
value as - progressed. There is also
a pay ledge, FIVE feet wide. on the west
SIDE Of the claim, that promises well
the surface indications being very
good.
"A word about the character OF the
people and the conditions OF life up
there. II is not wild and woolIy.' as
was the far West in the early days. al
though we have people drawn from
the four corners of the earth. There
is very little OF 'toting of guns and
the man who persists in carrying a re-
volver openly is generally laughed out
Of the practice. There is none OF the
western practice OF shooting at peo-
pies feet to make them dance. and such
a thing as killing a man for refusing
to take a drink is not only unknown,
but that sort of thing would not be
tolerated. There are occasional rows,
20 be sure. but very few lasting enmi-
ties. and it isn't good form to 60
around looking for trouble. The towns
are rapidly taking on the ~conveniences
Of civilization ersR away - shout