The Cordova daily times., 1921-02-26

seward competed the negotiations with Russia which resulted in the purchase of Alaska for the United States it was the custom to refer to Alaska as Stewards Folly" It was regarded as a land of perpetual ice and snow, of glaciers, Eskimos of dog teams and furs. Even today, thanks to our modern pictures, made iu Southern California, when the average American thinks of Alaska he thinks snow and ice. It is even yet referred to as "the nations ice box" Seward bought better than he knew.
 From TAI when Boring and Chiri- kof first sighted the Alaskan coast down through the Russian occupation to 1867, when Seward and de Stoeckl signed the treaty, even to the present day, Alaska has not been appreciated for what it is worth The early history of Alaska was a series of struggles between the Russian Ameri- can Company (who were vested with full authority in Alaska after 1799) and the natives for the wealth of the northland. The fame of the richness of the fur harvest in the new coun. try attracted the attention of the traders of other nations, and Spain, England, France, and the United States all sent expeditions to attempt to secure for themselves a share of the riches. All these nations took some of the harvest, all with drew except the United States leav- ing little else than their names in the country, and today many topographic features bear Russian, English, French, and Spanish names.
 The name of Seward is appropri- ately marked on the maps of Alaska Seward peninsula, the town of Sew ard-the port terminus of the govern ment railroad,-and Fort William H. Seward near Skagway.
 Unless one has seen something of that country it is impossible to real ize the immensity of it. The mere | figures of 59O,SS4 square miles mean little to the average person. To say that Alaska is larger than the thirteen original states with their | 325,065 square miles, that it is larger than Norway, Sweden, Finland, Eng land, Scotland and Ireland, with their 1 563,235 square miles, may mean little unless the reader is statistically in- clined. To say that it extends over one thousand miles of latitude, equal in distance from the Mexican border to the Canadian boundary, that from east to west it is over two thousand five hundred miles in longitude, may mean something to a casual reader. The island of Unalaska is almost as far west of San Francisco as San Francisco is west of the capital of the United States; and Attu Island, at the western tip of the Aleutian chain, is some 500 miles west of Unalaska. Climatically Alas ka is even less understood. Looking at map does not give one a cor rect idea of the climate of country. The bulk of Alaska shows on a map to lie north of Labrador. Fair. banks, Alaska, with It's mines, farms, electric lights, movies, churches, H. brary, schools, is more than fifteen hundred miles north of New York city, and three hundred miles north of the southern tip of Greenland. However, warm ocean currents large. ly make climates. The gulf stream keeps the port of New York open, while the absence of a warm ocean current closes the port of Vladivos- tok, in about the same latitude, for ] six months to the year. The Japan current makes Alaska habitable. Sew ard, on the Prince William sound, has about the same average winter temperature as New York and St. Louis, while that of Nome, on the M" oA pOhNioulCly olItu IWO u6BEGbS south of the Arctic circle has about the same average winter tempera. lures as northern Minnesota and Da- | kota.
 Article VI of the treaty signed by Secretary of State William H. Sew ard and Minister Edward de Stoeckl, on March 30, 18675 reads in part:
 "In consideration of cession afore- said, the United States agrees to pay at the treasury at Washington, within ten months after the exchange of the notifications of this convention, to the diplomatic representative or other agent of His Majesty the Emperor of all the Russians, duly authorized to receive the same, seven million 1 two hundrpd thousand doJlor, ;o