The Cordova daily times. [volume] (Cordova, Alaska) 1914-1947, 1919-02-15

article Of food, including the sugar,
was of local production. Cattle and
horses, wintered in the open In some
Of the interior valleys, come out In the
spring butter-fat and as sleek as II
cared for in box stalls. The enormous
herds of mountain sheep and caribou
are demonstrations of the value OF
the ranges for meat production. The
grain production of the Fairbanks and
Rampant farmers prove that cereal
crops are not confined to the valleys
of the coastal slope.
But the basic industry, Of course,
is and must be mineral production.
There are literally millions of acres
of alluvial gold, silver, tin and copper
deposits that would be held of bo-
nanza richness in California that are
now unproductive because of the ex-
cessive costs of recovery. With the
completion of the government railroad
and connecting wagon roads to points
of production, with adequate water
lines on interior rivers and sufficient
coastwise shipping facilities, the de-
velopment of Alaska's mineral re-
sources must be rapid and remuner-
alive. Central power plants eligibly
located for the distribution of electric
power to the various mining camps
would revolutionize mining methods
and production costs. Electric cur
rent may be transmitted to distant
and inaccessible regions where the
cost of fuel transportation would be
prohibitive. Mills for the reduction
and concentration of ores operated
electrically will in turn reduce the
cost of transportation to the railroad.
1t is even possible that systems OF
trolley lines for the operation Of cleo
trically-driven trucks over mountain
roads may be found practical and Geo.
nomical. Looking twenty years ahead
none of these foreshadowed possibili-
ties will seem stranger or more Won
derful than the developments of the
twenty years just passed.
Wonders Of Recent Years.
Who (speaking twenty years ago as
l am today Of the next twenty years)
had predicted that in metallurgy a
method of floating the mineral con-
tent of ores on soap bubbles would
increase production and reduce costs
would have been regarded otherwise
than as a dreamer? Who, then pre-
dieting the aeroplane as the winning
factor in world war, the submarine
as an instrument that would nearly
annihilate trans-oceanic commerce, or
would have foretold the completion of
the Panama Canal by the United
Stats, or would have pictured our gov
eminent as owner and operator of
great systems of hydro-electric gener-
alton and distribution, as reclaimfng
vast areas Of arid lands by irrigation
who, say, predicting these things
twenty years ago, would have been
classed other than as a visionary?
Perhaps the United States govern
ment may never construct a system
of wagon roads in Alaska it may
never erect immense electric power
plants adjacent to its coal fields and
distribute the power throughout the
mining districts; it may never cleo
trify the Alaskan railroad; it may
never encourage and stimulate the
search for gold and other mineral
riches of Alaska by directly aiding
prospectors, as Canada does; it may
never appropriate money to assist in
the development of Alaskan re-
sources; it may never establish a sys-
tenn of farm loans and state aid for
agriculture, but if It does not 1t will
be because Alaskans fail to impress
upon the nation the Importance and
proftableness Of such policies. River