Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-10-15
What We Knox About Alaska

What We Knox About Alaska
when begun to study geography
IN my early days, a good deal more
than seventy years ago, attended a
geography singing school, the only
one of the kind I ever heard of, or
knew anything about. We sung or
more properly expressed, we droned
the names of the places on the map
of the eastern and western CONT
nents; taking the rivers first and
bays and CULTS, proceeding from left
to right. The teacher said we would
always remember the locations and
the names after a term at the geogra-
ply singing school, My father was
always eager to aid me in my les
sons and he entered me as a scholar.
We sung once a week, Saturdays. All
sizes of people attended these geogra-
ply performances, while the term
lasted.
And we did remember all right
enough. When we sung the conti-
nent of North America I remember
what I thought of Behring straits
channel as I recall, only forty
miles wide and where the lands of
the two continents came thus closely
together. There are a great many
IilSIOIy SOIH pl1SlS WIZ lSSl lIIpIcSScu
with the idea that there were I'M
known aboriginal Indians and strange
peoples in America long before Co
1umbuS found the red tribes that we
know about and had landed on one of
the West Indies islands. Except for
the knowledge of the frozen climate
of Siberia in Asia and in the British
possessions in North America, there
was little to hinder passing across
at Berhing straits, from the old
world to the new.
Alaska had notice several hun
dred years ago and was known on
my early geography map as Russian
possessions" 1t was claimed by Rus
STA until the close Of the Civil war.
W. H. Seward, secretary of state I'M
der Mr.. Lincoln and later was on
friendly terms with the Russian. am
bassador in the strenuous times of
the Civil war. England, at the start,
was in open sympathy with the Con-
federate cause. Russia, on the other
hand, was friendly to the Federals
and it so happened that Mr.. Seward
sian possessions west of Behring
straits or Russia offered to sell,
Russia did not care for them, as
their empire of Russia was already
immense, and accessible to the Rus
SLAMS in Europe and Asia. Russia
TO sell 10 us.
The price settled on was seven mil
lion three hundred thousand dolalrs,
and under Mr.. Stewards chaperonage,
the United States purchased what is
now called Ala ska and it has been
our outlying territorial country since
1867.
1t was not until 1880 that par
ticular attention was called to the
value Of this territory.
A long about 1894 T hecane ar.
quail cd with a woman who was a
me- of the Board of Lady Man
age the Chicago Exposition, and
as lived at Juneau, the principal
tC l Alaska, and had to travel
+ five thousand miles by water
; to reach Chicago, I was al
I'D to have her tell me about
/! ~itory of Alaska.
81 and in the year 1898. it is
recr ID that five millions of dollars
wort Of gold was, brought into the
Unite States by the, miners, WHO
the 20 nuggets out of the sand
washed down from the mountains
during unnumbered ages. Alaska is
said to cover more territory than in
beginning at North Carolina, reach
ing to the Mississippi river, then
north to Canada, then east to the
Atlantic. The British territory
known as the Klondike, jutS into
Alaska and divides the known gold
section, which has been sending mill
lions upon millions of freshly dug
gold to the United States mint in
Philadelphia, ever since stamp mills
were erected in Alaska.
Alaska has paid for herself many
times over. Since 1879. the rush to
the gold diggings after that period
was astonishing. The thermometer
goes down to so degree below zero,
very often in January, and the Their
mometer frequently goes up over 100
above in the short summer time. The
miners that dig for gold on the out
side, can only dig from June through