The Wrangell sentinel., 1916-09-30

any one who has not given the matter thought.
 Time was when people looked askance upon the proposition of a sawmill ia Wrangell. Butthe men who were behind the .prolect knew what they were doing. The saw mill was built and became a hlg dividend payer.
 While buying a small order of paper in Seattle a few days ago we had it tcrcibly impressed upon us that the price of paper has scared in a manner comparable to the sem satiouA ascensions performed by the price of dyes and chemicals.
 The high price of paper is one of the important Questions of the moment. A congressional invest igation into the prlce of paper has been held. revealing in some in- stances increases in price of more than 200 per cent. A score -ot in- dustries are vitauy affected. The situation is unprecedented in the history of .papermaklng.
 The price of paper has risen im- mensely since the European war began, due partly to the higher cost of certain chemicals but chiefly to the fact that trade with Norway and Sweden is disorganiz- ed, and these countries had been exporting to the United States great quantities of wood pulp for paper manufacture. However, 1t has been suggested that the pres ent high prices are rot due entire ly to the war, but are at least in part a result If the increased de- mand. Jn which case the end al the war will not settle the matter.
 Paper manufacturers are now looking for new resources ot pulp supply. News print and similar papers are made from wood pulp. It is the steady depletion of the timber lands in the United States that makes American paper mak- CTS dependent on foreign countries for any pulp stock at all. And here 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. There are great stretches of the Tongass national forest 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 view to keeping the American public amply supplied with read ing matter. They are distinctly what lumbermen know as pulp proposition" That is, they would naturally and normally be Worked for paper rather than lumber The trees are large, often running up to six feet in diameter. and are capable of being worked into paper equal to the besr.
 Norway has made herself a large exporter of wood pulp. She has done this because her own re- sources are not the most varied, and in looking them over she found that this particular industry was the one for which nature had fitted her. She had great stretches of timber of the grade and species used in paper manufacture. She has large rivers plunging down deep grades from the tnouptabns to the coast within a few miles, and gem erating great power dn their flow. Her deep tords run far inland up the synken valleys of these rivers SC that deep sea vessels can load at the very mills. Heretofore Nor way has been shipping wood pulp not only to America, but through the SueZ canal to India and China.
 Here ns our own Southeastern Alaska we have these same con- ditions duplicated on a larger scale. There is the same juxtapos- itiGn of waterpowe-, timber and deep sea fords, where steamers could load at the mill itself.
 The coast line is very irregular, fringed with islands, indenteH aoy deep. marrow channels. There are twelve thousand miles of timbered shore dine on the Tongass nation al forest alone.
 The forest serviceshas recently madeleine best estimate possible with avaiIahie facilities, of the re- sources of the two Alaskan nation