The silver messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1890-1912, 1909-01-12
FUTURE OF ALASKA.
Prospect of Its Becoming a Great
Farming District.
1t IL Believed the Country VIII BE
Capable of Supporting 10000
900 Persons in som hing
Like Comfort.

Some idea OF the future of Alaska
and it's almost boundless resources is
given by Harrington Emerson in the
Engineering Magazine. Mr.. Emerson
believes that Alaska can support a
population of 100000 persons in com
fort, and that ut no distant day 1t
will be one of the worlds richest min
ing and farming districts. The ideas
of this explorer are expressed in part
as follows:
''The Yukon, the fourth largest river
in the world, navigable for more than
1000 miles above its mouth and run
ming in great semicircle from south
eastern to northwestern Alaska forms
a natural highway All this was
known long ago; but it was not known
that the interior contained 100 900
square miles of farming lands and all
most limitless areas of the richest
mineral lands in the world. 1t is in
this unsubdued country that thou
sands of miles of railroad must be
built, that great areas will open for
settlement, absorbing and keeping
busy 100000 workers as fast as they
choose to go.
1T is, however. not the agricultural
resources that will Immediately at
tract the largest influx Of population
and capital. About 140 miles from
Valdez in the Chittyna valley are very
great copper deposits, which during
the last season have been visited by
many experts. Some Of the ores run
SIS per cent. copper, and there are many
thousand tons in sight assaying 16 per
cent.
ga great mountain slide has occurred
in this region revealing it is claimed,
as much as 100000 tons of high
grade copper ores. Valdez bay and the
low pass north Of it are the American
gateways to the Yukon valley. ard al
ready railroad has been surveyed and
partly graded to the interior, for the
copper, though it can be quarried like
the iron ores of Lake Superior. with
out a railroad will remain worthless
The railroad itself is assured an I'M
limited tonnage. II is re short st
line to Dawson and the Yukon valley,
and what is Of more importance, it
can carry supplies delivered at Val
dez from sailing vessels CT deep draft
ocean steamers in all the months Of
the year. with only one break of bulk
at Valdez, and also reach the deep
navigable Yukon and the Koyullpk a
month earlier than by the Yukon
mouth, which is closed by Behring
sea ice until July 1.
Gas shown in the history of the
White Pass railroad, the ingping traf-
tic would in itself be sufficient to war
rant a railroad, but from DAVIS on the
only export is gold. about 70 tons q
year, while this road will net only car
ry all the United States government
troops and supplies, for wh.ch mary
hundred thousand dollars are spent,
but it will have the unlimited out
bound tonnage of high-grade copper
ores, which, with freight rate of two
dollars n ton from Valdez o the smell
ters of Puget sound will scarcely be
treated in the interior
1T is not too much to expect tina
improvement in transportation facili-
ties alone Will convert central Alaska
into as closely populated and pres
/ porous region as Colorado, as the
Black Hills, of South Dakota, as the
rich mining region of British Colum.