The Cordova daily times., 1921-03-02

ture, and part of it is well timbered and exceedingly fertile. There are great valleys in this part of Alaska the Copper River Valley, the Susitna Valley, the Yetna Valley, the Panama Valley, the Valley of the Kuskokwim all awaiting development. It is es- timated that in this section of Alas ka there is more coal than there is in all the rest of the United States and within it's confines are the greatest cattle and sheep ranges un- der the American flag. Here is the land for the immigrant. Here is the place fo rthe homeseeker. In these valleys are vast stretches of arabic lands, much greater in area than In some of the states of the union; and this part of Alaska can support larger number of people than Nor way and Sweden and Finland and Denmark combined.
 Look again at the map. On the hills here in southwestern Alaska are great cattle ranges, and here in abundance grows what is called buff falo grass, bunch-grass, which stands five or six feet high, rich in sac charin matter; and cattle can graze here all the year without protection from the weather. It is far superior for cattle grazing than the most fav- ored sections of the northern states They have no blizzards, and the win ters, although cold have little snow, and the climate is dry and invigorat- ing. Cattle graZe here all the year and they are fatter and in better condition in the spring than they are in the fall. What country for the cattleman!
 Southwestern Alaska is destined in the next twenty-five years to have a permanent agricultural and cattle raising population, and the day will come when this part of Alaska will contain and sustain several millions of people. It has now a permanent population of thousands who have gone there and been there for many years, many of whom were born there, and they intend to stay there.
 Alaska north of the Yukon river is a vast country, stretching away from the Yukon river to the Arctic ocean. This part of Alaska has very little timber. It is rich in mineral re- sources and is essentially a mining country. It has vast deposits of copper, and gold, and tine, and coal, and various other kinds of minerals. This part of Alaska will always be sparsely inhabited by a migratory people who are there to mine, and when the mines are worked out they will come away
 Alaskas production of mineral wealth is growing apace. The mineral production since 1880, when mining first began, is, in round figures, $5O6,OO0,000, or more than seventy times the sum paid to Russia for the territory.
 Do you know that long before Cali fornia was heard of, long before the Columbia river was discovered, long before there was a United States, Alaska had been explored and set tied? If Chinese records are to be believed, the discovery of Alaska antedates the journeys of the Morse men to Greenland and across the At lantic. According to these records, a Chinese Buddhist priest traversed the Alaskan shores in 499 A. D. In 1711 the Cossacks of Russia were hunt ing sable in Alaska. In 1724 Peter the Great with his own hand wrote the instructions for the expedition that led to the exploration of Bering sea, and in the following century Spanish, English and French navi- gators again and again headed for the Alaskan coast in vain effort to find a passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic. The records of these explorations constitute a most important part of the history of America.
 am one of the pioneers of Alaska. belong to the Arctic Brotherhood. Years ago I said that Alaska was the wonderland of the world I reiter- ate that, Nine-tenths of the people of the country have no idea of the vastness of her boundaries; the ex- tent of her domain; the grandeur of her scenery; the salubrity of her eli mate; the wonders of her mountains; the length of her rivers; the possibili- ties of her fisheries; the greatness of her forests; the grazing advan- tages in her valleys for sheep and cattle; her untouched agricultural cpSOlIrapC. bpr inoo 1o,,1oI,1o