Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-09-20

knowledge of the great peninsula pre- vails among the well informed Euro peans than among the same class of Americans, for personal contact counts for much.
 Two great rooms in the Alaskan building are set apart for public rest rooms. The walls are adorned with many paintings of Alaskan scenery Here is Mount Mckinley, the highest peak in North America, effectively done in oil. Here is a large photograph of one council of the Arctic Brotherhood, the great organization of the brains and enterprise of the towns of the vast territory banded together for the pres ervation of order, mutual protection in all things and for the advancement of Alaska and the interests of all You may sit in the gentlemen's rest room and read the Alaskan daily papers. You may read the Nome Daily News from the most northern city of this continent, if not of the world; the Whitehorse Evening Star, the Skag- way Daily Guide, the Juneau Daily Dispatch and the Record Union, the Skagway Daily Alaskan, the Ketchikan Mining Journal, the Sitka Alaskan and the Wrangel Sentinel. In all these towns are public schools, some of them graded and up to date, even to vertical writing and well organized kindergar- tens.
 So many of us haven't the time to go to Alaska, even though time were not money, that it has been found ad- visable to bring Alaska here in every effective way. A young man will oper- ate for you stereopticon showing endless scenes of Alaskan life and so- ciety; industry and opportunities for it; fish, fowl and fur; glaciers and chunks of glaciers floating as icebergs on blue bays to scare tourists when steamers get too close and all sorts of things to make you familiar with Alas ka as it is today. Scores of transpar- encies are between you and the out door light, and it takes more than the tugging of other duties to draw you away from their magnetic grasp.
 When an Eskimo wants to catch seal he cuts a hole through the ice and with a little clawed tool scratches the ice near the hole. He keeps this up with the same patience that a fisherman will watch red bob on a blue lake. By and by, if a seal happens to be strolling that way, his ear will catch the sound, and he will wonder what's doing near that hole in the ice. He will follow the sound like small boy follows a brass band, and when he comes to the hole he will stick his head out of the water to investigate. That was what the playful Eskimo was watching for, so he taps the seal on the head with something hard and takes him home for dinner and. if the family be not too large, for subsequent meals also Without the seal there might have been no Eskimos, and without the Eskimos far less interesting exhibit from Alaska. Ivory carvings yellow with great age, family heirlooms of the Eskimos, curious spoons of horn and ivory, patchwork mats made of deerskin, hair seal and wolverene hide are some of the many things they have contributed.
 The Alaskan exhibit was provided for by an appropriation of $4O,OO0 by the government, but the sum was in- adequate, and what we see here is really loan exhibit from manysources, the fund being used to provide the building and to pay for the transporta- ton and care of the exhibits.
 Fair Grounds, St. Louis.
 N <. MY x