The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-05-26

lnounced that 100 miles of the 415 miles lof the Alaska Central Railway project ed will operate trains soon from the lnew city of Seward and that the re- Imainder of the track north to Ramport
 on the Yukon, will be Dapidly laid. A lNew York syndicate will build a rail- lway from Valdes to Eagle.
 A lighthouse will be erected at Se-
 ward. The Navy Department favors the erection of a naval base. and the
 War Department an army base
 and Gibraltar" at Seward on Resurrection Bay, to which the cable
 will extend to connect with new cor lporate interior system of telegraph and telephone lines throughout the Susit- Ina and Tanana River valleys.
 Alaska did s5OOO0,O00 of trade with lPacific Coast cities during 1903; dug lnearly $SO,OOO,O 900 of gold, caught about I$S,000,000 worth of salmon, turned out coal enough to indicate future self Support in feul, defined 4,5OO square miles of oil and kept two tank ships busy exporting petroleum: operated lsixty steamers on the lower Yukon, land another fleet on the upper Yukon; gathered great quantities of furs; turn ed out much sulphur on Unalaska Is- Hand; developed big sheep and fox in ldustry on the smaller Aleutian islands; lopened up q tin ledge 300 miles north lof Nome etc.
 The greatest rush yet to Alaskan If.a ha lof oy-t 1f kf.a~ ~ol,
 when six steamers sailed from Seattle
 leaving many passengers and much
 freight. Already it is a problem as to ihow the demands for transportation can be met.
 Alaska wants 100000 miners at the highest wages on earth, 30,000 of whom are called for in the Panama and Ram part gold regions alone. New steam lships are being built and have been purchased for service between Seattle.
 Portland, and Alaskan ports. Trans portation companies are confronted whh the greatest stampede to Alaska lever known.
 The new telegraphic lines connect Fort St. Michael, Fort Davis, Nome. St. Michael Fort Gibbon, Rampant, Fort Egbert, Eagle city, and Valdes. A sep arate cable connects Skagway With IIaines Mission and Juneau. Gen.. Greedy encountered, he says very early Isprings, late autumns, and gold levers that stripped his crops of civilians. Firs. Lieut.. George s. Gibbs, pushed a line up to Tanana River along route considered impracticable First Lieut. l William Mitchell carried his surveys up the Goodpasture River, where white men had never penetrated. Capt George c. Burnell worked from the sea over a Itas-a Pass.
 The country traversed by the Signal Corps had not twenty miles of wagon lroad. The coils of wire were carried 145 miles on pack animals, and supplies could only be sled-drawn and cached for future operations in midwinter to the exten. of 220 tons, not a pound of which could be moved by wagon. Ow- ing to the disappearance of civilian em- 1 ployees. the work was wholly done by enlisted men in the Signal Corps and line of the army.
 Official reports showed that progress was impeded by fall of snow of sixty lone feet at Fort Liscum, adjoining the Hopper River Valley. Temperature va ried during operations from two de- grees Fahrenheit to sixty-one degrees beyow zero.
 Yet such was the resourcefulness and
 endurance of the American soldier that 1 the work of construction in the valley ! os the Panama was carried on during
 the entire winter without loss of life
 and only one serious case of freezing. l But for these very conditions the lines l could not have been strung, owing to | the fires and morasses of summer. The final completion of the tele- graph lines" says Gen. Gree,y, twas
 made just as an extensive forest fire i devastated the upper Tanana valley, 1 burning thousands of square miles of ] timber. and destroying more than one hundred miles of telegraph lines" One ! Signal Corps man and one man of the line were drowned, one frozen to death, 1 one crippled for life, and two commit | ted suicide during the repairs to the l line destroyed by fire, showing how
 much easier i. is to build than rebuild,
 and thereby establish a moral for man. kind. This great work was done by men receiving only $15 to s54 month, while civilians scorned $90 a month with board.
 The cable laying was commenced late last season, owing to the appro- Driation of $4S5.0 900 not being made un- til March g. The cableship Burnside had to be repaired at Shanghai and lay the Philippine cable. It was July ' when she reached Sitka. and laid seventeen miles of cable between Skag- sway and Haines Mission. Meantime the principal strand, 1900 miles long, had to be made in New York, and transported 16,O00 miles around Cape Horn to Seattle.
 Electrical engineers had to be em- ployed and trained for the work by the Signal Corps, which itself had first to go in training. Capt. Edgar Russell came from the Philippines, drew the specifications for the manufacture of the cable, organized the inspection force, gand instructed the electrical en- lgineers, at whose head, fortunately, Twas New York's expert, MT. Townsend