The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-04-29

the destruction of great quantities of timber The water melts the frozen strata under the trees and they fall. foots and all. into the streams. All along the Yukon and Panama such waste may be seen going on, the treea moving like floating islands on with the current.
 The timber of interior Alaska is of but little value in comparison with that of the coast. The most of it is used for firewood, being cut into four-foot lengths and piled up in long ricks. Until recently wood was about the only fuel used by the steamers on the Yukon. and there are still wood sta- tions on the upper parts of the river The lower Yukon Is navigated by means of fuel oil, brought from Cali fornia and stored in great iron tanks at the various ports.
 Fairbanks is now heated with wood and this is so of all the homesteads of the Tanana valley. Much of the fire wood is cut into logs and floated down the river to Fairbanks It is also dragged by teams to the mines, where it brings as high as $16 cord. The town of Fairbanks alone uses from 15,000 to 10000 cords every year, and that part of the Panama valley con. sumes about 60.000 cords In Fair banks the price is about $10 8 cord with an additional charge of $2.50 when cut into stove lengths. Wood chop pers are paid about s4 per cord; or, If they work by the day. they receive $5 and board. There are three saw mills at Fairbanks. each of which has a daily capacity of about 20, 900 board feet. Common lumber brings about s36 per thousand and boat lumber. which must be entirely sound. sso per thou sand.
 There Is enormous waste going on in the forests Of Alaska Young trees by the millions are killed by the rabbits. These little animals strip off the bark as the snow melts, girdling the trees from the ground also to the height of mans waist. The next summer the trees die ana the whole region becomes a brush heap.
 There are also many forest fires and in the Fairbanks district 1t is safe to say that lo times as much timber has been Killed oy lire as has been cut for fuel or lumber. Fire follows the prospector and settler. The miners and hunters are careless, and thousands of cords of wood are destroyed by a single prairie nre There are such wastes all along the ukon, and the damage done has been greater in Canada than in Alaska All the way from White Horse to Dawson, & distance of 460 miles, I was almost al- ways In sight of burned forests, and I saw fire-killed timber here and there along the Yukon from the international boundary to the mouth of the Panama. I saw many such wastes on the Renal pen lnsula, open spaces in the woods where the thick forest has been reduced to a brush heap by the match of prospec- tor. In such places the trees fall in every direction. They tear out the earth as they fall. and the roots extend like great mill wheels, or mighty fans, high out of the brush. The dead trees, often spruce or pine. change their color from green to sable silver; they look like jewels when the sun shines upon them.
 The Renal peninsula Is a part of the Chugach forest reservation and from now on the woods there will be more carefully watched. Much of the timber Is in the country that will be developed