Seward daily gateway., 1925-09-04
HITS ICEBERG
 WAY CORDOVA
 SAYS WRITER
SOUTHERN NEWSPAPER MAN DESCRIBES ALASKA LURE
 AS HE VIEWED TT.
See Large Iceberg Break Off from ChiIds GIacer-Thinks Juneau
 Pretty Big Town.

Today's article by F. P. Roper, Californian scribe who is writing his impressions of Alaska gained while visiting the Territory last month and who spent couple days in Sew ard, deals with that part of the jour- hey after leaving Juneau for South western Alaska:
 July p, 1925.
 We had quite thrill this morning when we came within a few feet of striking an iceberg, head on. There was a dense fog about o'clock. The vessel was proceeding slowly at half speed, when an iceberg about 30 feet in diameter hove in sight directly ahead. The boat was put in reverse and steered to one side, missing the huge piece of ice by ten feet. The officers informed us that the berg was large enough to have stove a hole in the side of the vessel had it struck squarely. After that we stop ped and drifted for nearly three hours until the fog cleared. Then we proceeded through Icy Straits at full speed, fo rit had cleared off nicely. We passed hundreds of ice bergs quite close to the vessel. Some of them were very large, con- sidering that but one-eighth shows above the water.
 We are now in open water headed for Cordova, where we are due to arrive some time tomorrow night
 We arrived at Juneau last night at 11:30, remaining an hour and a half Nearly every one left the ship and inspected the town, which is the capital of Alaska. It is city Of about 5000 inhabitants, and the principal industry is the big gold mine-the largest quartz mine in the world The mill handles and crushes 10000 tons or ore daily It is low grade proposition, running $1.40 to $1.60 per ton, employing 450 men. We were informed that the mine has been paying until last year, when new improved machinery was installed and the company recently declared a dividend of $92,000. The ladge is from 200 to 500 feet thick. The ore is handled by gravity, being run out of tunnel into the mountain on electric trains, after which it is run through rock crushers and ball mills, where 18-ton steel balls revolving in drums crush the rock into a powder ed form.
 Juneau, like all the Alaskan towns we have seen, has wooden streets which serve the purpose very nicely in a country where it rains and snows l a great portion of the time. There is little danger of the streets catching afire and burning up, for they are too ] wet to burn The same is true of the forests, which cannot burn on account l of the dampness. For that reason no forest rangers are required tC look after fires in this country July 23, 1925 We are now sailing across smooth l unbroken sea, crossing the Gulf ot Alaska. We have been in open water since yesterday forenoon, and most ot I the passengers are showing up al most of the meals-four each day The last meal is served from 8 until II in the evening.
 This forenoon we passed about 15( miles of glaciers on the southern l coast of Alaska, but they were 30 tC l 50 miles away.
 The sun has been shining brightly all day, and it is just comfortable lounging in the sun.
 Strelna, July 23 It is now 10 o'clock in the evening and the sun is still shining on the ! mountains.
 l We left the steamer at Cordova las night at 9:30 o'clock, after having a wonderful ocean trip. All after noon we traversed, beautiful bay lin ed with rugged mountains and pretty islets. The trees and shrubbery art a dark emerald green. The timber