The Nome nugget., 1902-01-04

polarOcrystic ice fields of the Arctic. There the strong summer currents, at times deflected by the solid masses of ice, at times whirling these around, store up whalefeed in quantities sufficient for armies of whales. There they can grow up undisturbed by their
 enemies to maturity or until they be- come so large they need must stay in the richer assures of the south, where they quickly become the prey of the
 wha CTS.
 The large numl CT Of steam whalers cruising in the Arctic for the last 20 y. arsT has tended to make the whales more wary. They have learned to know the noise made by the churning 'of the propellers and try to keep we'll ahead of the ship and retreat further between the heavy ice pack, which they will not leave until abso- lutely forced out by the freezing of the ocean. Of late years. therefore, it has been only while the whales were mi grating back and forth that the whaers have been able to catch any. Still in some seasons conditions prevail in the Arctic very favorable to the whalers, and there is enough of the hog in the whales nature, and the fact is notice- able today with the decreasing number of steam whalers. to make them banker after and induce them to llnger again on the rich feeding grounds they have been driven from.
 Take it all in all, the catching of whales is surrounded with conditions which, carefully looked into, will in crease the chances of success, and, now that an intelligent population has settled on these shores. m.re attention will naturally be given to he habits of the whales and the prevailing ice con ditions. That there are still number less whales in the Alaskan waters 1 have from personal ob ,ervation. l was stationed for years at Pt. Barrow, engaged in the business of shore whal- ing. The whales in their northward mi q at on pass clo e to thi> point every spring. From the middle of April to the middle of June they would stream by day after day in a seemingly endless procession, rushing to the no. tn like stampeders to new diggings.
 In the early days of New Bedford whaling industry many young men of New England wert prou to ,h paboard a whaler and go off on cruise lasting from three to four years. The experl- ence gained and the training made them daring and resourceiul. It was to the men raised in that school that American shipping was largely in- debted for it's prosperity during the first half of the nineteenth century. Later. when the industry took on it's large proportions, the ship owners more and more had to repleni,h their crews fiom the Portuguese natives of Cape Verde islands, ship Kanakas and SCOUT the slums of New York for sailors. So. too, it became the fashion in San Francisco to ship the scum of the water front on the whaling vessels. Thi, not only tended to make t1e crews but also brought the busi- ness, as $ career for a young man, more and more into disrepute. This ehou'd not be. The occupation is healthy, we'll adapted to make good men and with just enough danger attached to it 10 give it zest. The day will come when there will be men with families living on these shores who will make their sole occupation. just like it used 10 be in New England.
 It is well worth while for the inhab- itants of Northwestern Alaska to look carefully into the situation and the afforded to them by the business. They should get together and fit out a vessel or two. The industry would scon grow by its own weight here as it has done in other places before, and it wo I not be many years when the wealth produced by the industry here would rival the wealth produced by our mines.
 CONRAD SEEM.