The Alaska daily empire., 1919-09-11

llOldi OG6Sl anu VI EOuptlIl.
 tendont Alaska National Forests Most people throughout the states think of Alaska only in terms of icebergs and polar bears, and the! look up with surprise when told of it's splendid summer climate and luxurious vegetation which includes vast areas of continuous forest. The forests of Alaska come under two classes, the forests of the wet and the forests of the dry regions with an annual precipitation of from so to 200 inches in the wet and ten to twenty inches in the dry regions The forests of the wet region cover narrow coastal belt on the mainland extending from the southern bound ary of Alaska north to Kodiak This coastal belt is very narrow and the total area of the forests of the wet belt although covering about 20,00O,- ison to the forested area of the dry region
 Country Has Much Timber. The timber species of the wet belt are very similar to those of the Puget sound region. consisting of hemlock, red cedar, yellow cypress (yellow cedar) with a small amount of lodgepole pine, yew amablis fir and cottonwood In the dry region tho species consist of white spruce, black spruce, aspen. white birch. cotton. wood. lodgepole pine and larch. Much of the area comprising the great valleys of the Yukon. Tanana Kuskokwiin Susitna and Conner riv CTS, with their tributaries. either are now or have been timbered; th2 slopes with pure stands or a heavy | mixture of birch and aspen, while the bottoms contain the best stands of spruce.
 The birch on the slopes seldom at
 tains a diameter of more than from six to twelve inches and height
 of from sixty to forty feet, while the | UCSl W HUI lo biC dN liliipOt
 of the Yukon, Panama, Kuskokwim,
 Susitna and Copper river valleys, sci dom exceeds twenty inches in dia meter and seventy-five feet in height | The white birch and white spruce
 have contributed most of the saw
 timber and fuel used in the great
 gold regions of the Yukon and Tan
 ana rivers.
 Although millions of acres of this | small timber which extends in many places far north of the Arctic circle
 have been burned, there is yet many millions of acres in good condition
 waiting to serve as an aid to various | kinds of local development. Much of the small timber that has been logged throughout the Yukon valley
 and other places in the dry region has been transported to streams or place of use by means of dog teams.
 l The best timber in the coastal re zion or wet belt is found in the Ton. | gass National Forest, which com prises practically all of southeastern 1 Alaska. It is estimated that this re
 zion contains OOO0,OOO,O00 board feet of merchantable timber, the sev- eral species occurring approximately
 as follows:
 Hemlock, 65 per cent; Sitka spruce
 20 per cent; red cedar, per cent;
 yellow cypress, per cent; other spe
 cies, 3 per cent.
 Even though the quantity of tim
 Der in Alaska is quite large on ac-
 count of it being badly scattered sel dom occurring in bodies sufficiently
 large to justify the necessary i'm
 movements to get it out, and the
 quality not being equal in every re-
 spect. to the finest belt of timber in the world along the coast farther
 south with which it must compete. it lis not considered that Alaska will
 ever contribute any large quantities
 of saw timber to the general market | Timber Good for Pulp.
 The timber in Alaska is much
 more suitable for pulp and paper than if is for saw timber. Conse
 ouently, on account of the unlimited amount of cheap wood and immense
 quantities of cheaply installed water
 power with deep water transports tions to the doors of the world southeastern Alaska in the compar
 atively near future must become one
 of the great paper centers Of the
 world.
 Hemlock stands first in quantity
 but is vry inferior in quality on tho lowlands. where logging is being
 chiefly conducted at the present time Consequently, very little hemlock l.
 being logged as saw timber. There are. however, on the slopes larg' quantities of hemlock of excellent quality and very suitable for saw timber. Hemlock is being cut ex tensively at the present time fo' bling. During the season 1918 ap proximately 3.500.000 linear feet O hemlock piling was cut on the Ton III xrhi iph ic