Douglas Island news., 1915-10-13

The following petition, signed by all the people of Skagway, has been pre- sented to all the four lines of steamers running to that town: "We, the under. signed business men and residents of Skagway, Alaska, hereby urge your consideration of the matters brought to your attention by the Commercial Club, to the end that you may, by mu tual arrangement between your com panies, give passengers an opportunity to exchange their tickets to return on later steamers, and that you have your steamers remain in this port long enough to allow at least three hours for the tourists in our town, exclusive of the time consumed in making the excursion trip on the White Pass < Yu' kon Route to Summit or Bennett"
 With the completion of the govern ment railroad in Alaska will come a
 boom in quartz mining that will even
 eclipse the placer record already made,
 says M. c. Tynen, of Anchorage, who is
 in Seattle to purchase machinery and
 supplies to develop a group of claims
 at the head of Peters creek, near Knik arm. "There is a lot of high-grade quartz ore that is just awaiting better transportation facilities to begin to
 produce" said Mir. Tynen yesterday at
 the Seattle. "There are three groups of claims near mine that are now being
 worked on, and on my holdings ] have a force of fifteen men that will be in- creased to twenty-five for the winter season. am out here getting water wheels, a ten stamp mill aud other needed machinery. There is such a wealth of water power to be had that once machinery is installed there is little expense in operating" According to Mir. Tyuen, Anchorage, for a new town, is rapidly losing it's raw and crude appearance. "The timber has been cut off and the streets graveled," he said. GA number of good frame buildings have gone up, and 1 under stand that beginning next spring brick and stone will make it's appearance as building material. The record for town that was nothing but tents this summer is pretty good."-P.L.
 A clergyman wrote to Iditarod from Seward some time ago asking if that camp needs minister of the gospel and our esteemed contemporary, the Idita. rod Pioneer, received the suggestion in what must be called an extremely ir- manner. Quoth the Pioneer: "We may as we'll be entirely frank with our correspondent and inform him at the outset that it is our firm belief that there is expressing demand for the ser vices of a minister in Iditarod. Not that we are an irr eligious people-far from it. Nor need the reverend gentleman be unnecessarily concerned about the fact that we are deprived of religious services. The people of the section are of such cosmO- politau makeup that it is extremely doubtful if there could be found enough adherents of any one religion to form a congregation. The popula- tion is rather widely scattered, and travel between the different sections is extremely difficult at certain seasons of the year 1t is probable that the only kind of minister who would be at all popular in this section would be an exponent of muscular Christianity" Such a person, devotiug the business hours of the day to manipulating No. 9. and his leisure hours to spiritual among his co'workers, would find a splendid field"