Evening star., 1916-09-08
, ALASKAN FORESTS
HOLD PULP WOOD
Great Virgin Fields Await the
Establishment of
Paper Mills.
REM0TENESS HINDERS
PROPER development
Other Causes for Retarded Activities
There May Be Over
come.
BY FREDERIC ]. HAsKIN.

BY FREDERIC j. HASKIN.
The high price of paper is one Of the
really important questions Of the mo-
ment. Paper of all sorts is scarce. and
apparently getting scarcer. This is es-
pecially true OF the paper that news
papers and the cheaper magazines are
printed on, which has scared in a man
ner comparable to the sensational ascen-
sions performed by the prices Of dyes
and chemicals. And paper today. espe-
cially print paper. is no luxury. It
is a necessity OF our daily life.
The briefest consideration shows what
a part paper plays in the modern scheme
Of things You are continually buying
and using paper OF one sort or another.
from the time you get up and read a
morning paper at breakfast to the time
when you lay aside your book or maga-
zine and go TO sleep at night. The amount
Of paper that a big city consumes in a
day is enormous. Raise the price of
paper SO or a 100 per cent, and score
of industries are vitality affected.
War Increases Prices.
The price of paper has risen immensely
since the European war began. due
partly to higher costs Of certain chem
icals. but chiefly to the fact that trade
with Norway and Sweden is disorgan-
lied, and from these countries We had
been importing great quantities OF wood
pulp for paper manufacture. II we have
not felt the effects of the situation to
any great extent SO far, it is because
the men who use the paper in their
business and pay the bills have been
holding on and hoping for a return to
normal conditions.
In the meantime We are beginning
TO economize on paper in every posi-
BILE way. More waste paper is being
saved and sold to be used over again
in manufacture than ever before. Ad-
vertisers have actually been asked to
hold down the size of their advertise
ments in newspapers in order to use
as little paper as possible in getting
results. A congressional investigation
into the price of paper has been held.
Some of the less wealthy periodicals
are appearing printed on paper of new
and startling hue and surface. The
situation is unprecedented in the his
tory of the paper industry.
If adj this is simply a result of war
conditions the general sentiment is
that we shall just have to weather
the stringency best We can and be
a little more careful of our paper. But
il has been suggested that the present
high prices are at least in part re-
suit of increased demand as well as of
cutting off of foreign supplies. In
which case the end of the war will
not settle the question.
Material in Alaska.
And this view. which has led us TO
take stock of our national resources,
has drawn attention to the immense
and lfttle-known stretches of paper
material in Alaska. News-print and
similar papers are made from wood
pulp 1t is the steady depletion of our
timber lands that makes us dependent
on foreign countries for any pulp stock
! at all. And in southeastern Alaska we
have on government land, as the prop
erty of the nation, one of the greatest
supplies of raw material for paper
making In the world.
II is only recently that any attention
has been paid to these Alaskan national
forests. Great stretches Of them are
still to be explored But we know that
they contain billions on billions Of
feet of virgin timber Nature seems
to have laid them out especially with
a view to keeping the American pub
lie amply supplied with reading matter.
They are distinctly what lumbermen n
know as a pulp proposition"--that is.
they would naturally and normally be
worked for paper rather than for lum-
ber. The trees are large. often rum
ming up to six feet in diameter, but
the quality of the wood is not the
highest for building purposes. They
are capable, however, of being worked
into a paper equal TO the best
Norway Large Exporter.
Norway has made of herself large
exporter of pulp and pulpwood. She
has done this because her own natural
resources are not Of the most varied
and on looking them over she found
that this particular industry was one
for which nature had fitted her. She
grade and species used in paper manu-
facture She has large rivera plungtn
j down the steep grades from the noun
tains TO the coast within few miles
and generating great power in theii
flow. Her deep fords run far INLAND
up the sunken valleys of these rivers
so that deep-sea vessels can load at thu
very mills. And Norway ships pulI
wood not only to America, but through
the Suez canal TO India and China.
Now in our own southeastern Alaska
Z territory We have these very conditions
duplicated on a larger scale, There ii
the same tuxtaposition of water pow
er. timber and deep fords running fal
mill itself. The Alaskan forests ar.
exceedingly dense and luxuriant. Th'
rainfall Is very heavy-twice as grea
as that Of the eastern United States
and the result is a prodigal Iuaurianc,
of We egetatioH hard to reconcile with tn,
popular idea of Alaska The forest,
are choked with lush underbrush, car.
peted with moss. and SO shadowed BY
the roof Of spruce and hemloch foliag.
that the light in them is a haif-twi
light al noon.
, Many Streams IN Forest.
Through this forest run many
streams, falling hundreds of feet in the
course OF a comparatively few miles
which means speed OF water and re.
salting power. The American-Cana.
dian boundary runs along the crest Of
the coast range-its location was SC
defined by the treaty of purchase from
Russia-and from that crest to tn,
very ege Of the sea the earth is clothed
with trees.
The coast line Is very irregular
fringed with. islands. indented by deep