the degree of humidity of the air, all combine to influence the climate in any place. The neighborhood of the sea tends to raise the temperature of the air and to render it uniform.

In Southeastern Alaska the climate is mild, the mercury seldom reaching zero. The climate at Sitka, the capital of the district, presents no great extremes in heat and cold, having an average summer range of 56 degrees and winter range of about 32 degrees. Four degrees below zero is the lowest range officially recorded at Sitka for more than fifty years. The annual rainfall at Sitka is officially reported from 60 to 95 inches.

mer.

In Northwestern Alaska the climate is, of course, more severe, yet the winters in this division are much warmer than would ordinarily be expected. In the Yukon Valley the thermometer frequently registers 100 degrees above zero in summer, and from 50 to 70 degrees below in winter. Along the coast of the Bering Sea it rarely falls to 40 below zero. The greatest variation of temperature at Nome in 1900 was 38 degrees below in winter to 96 above in sumNome's average temperature during December was approximately 20 degrees below zero; during January about 10 below; February 10 above, and during March the mean temperature was about zero. Three hundred and fifty miles inland from Kotzebue Sound, north of the Arctic Circle, the average temperature during February, 1899, (the coldest month of that year) was 38 degrees below zero. The average summer range was about 50 above. Along the coast of the Arctic Ocean, from Point Hope to Point Barrow, the latter being in latitude 71 deg. 23 min., the lowest temperature observed was 72 degrees below zero; yet even this extreme low temperature has no

more terrors for the denizens of the polar seas than has 20 degrees below zero for the residents of the middle and eastern states.

As to the Gulf Stream of the Atlantic, the mildness of the climate in northwestern Europe is mainly due, so the Japan Current of the Pacific has a wonderful modifying influence on the temperature of Arctic Alaska.

The Summers in this far northland are short, and the Winters long, it is true, and we have some very cold, stormy, disagreeable weather, yet when men and women can live throughout the long winter months in tents made from 10-ounce duck, with a sheet-iron stove 10 inches deep by 12 inches wide and two feet long, with driftwood for fuel, and not suffer from the cold, it is evident that the climate cannot be so terribly severe. And this is what many persons from the States, including the writer, have done in Alaska during the past three years.

Alaska contains hundreds of beautiful rivers and lakes, and some of the former are of great length. The Yukon is one of the largest rivers in the world,—made famous in 1897 by the discovery of its vast mineral wealth.

The Yukon River is about 2,100 miles in length, and it is said to discharge as great a volume of water as the Mississippi. It is navigable for five months in the year for a distance of more than 1,500 miles from its mouth. In many places the current is very swift, from 6 to 9 miles an hour. The river empties into Norton Sound, about 100 miles southwest from St. Michael. It has a general southwest course up to the bend at Fort Yukon, where it receives the waters of the Porcupine, a stream of considerable size, which heads near the mouth of the MacKinzie River, about three

hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle. Above this point the general course of the river is northwest, crossing the international boundary line near Seventy Mile Creek, a short distance above Fort Egbert, and continues in a more or less westerly direction from Dawson and through the rich gold fields of the Klondike.

The principal tributaries of the Yukon are Koyukuk,

Tanana, White, Sixtymile, Fortymile, Seventymile, 'Mission, Charlie, Birch, Beaver, Dall, Nowiakat, Tozikakat and Melozikakat rivers. The Koyukuk River is 600 miles in length, the Tanana 300 and the White about 200.

The Kuskokwim River is the second largest stream in Alaska. It is probably 800 miles in length, and is said to be the best river for steamboating in the territory, with the possible exception of the Yukon. Steamboats of considerable size can ascend the river

nearly 600 miles, and the distance between the Lower Kuskokwim and the great Yukon is only about 20 miles at one point. It is claimed that a canal route could be established between the two rivers at a comparatively small expense, thus furnishing the most practicable water route to the Yukon gold fields.

The Kuskokwim River empties into Bering Sea 360 miles north of Unimak Pass, and more than 300 miles south of St. Michael, near Goodnews Bay. Colors of gold have been found on the main stream as well as on many of its tributaries.

"The Natives of the Upper Kuskokwim belong to the general type of North American Indians known to ethnologists as Athabascans. Formerly the word 'Tinneh' was employed to designate the Alaskan Athabascans, this word being taken from their own language and signifying simply men. The Upper Kuskokwim people have been called the Khyulchan or Kolchane by the Russians, who explored the little river, according to whom they were treacherous and warlike in character. No account, however, of any visit to these people is extant, and it is probable that many of them had never seen white men until our visit in 1898. We found them a poor and scattered folk, wandering continually from place to place, and possessing no villages of any kind, not even such wretched ones as do the Eskimos of the lower river. In a number of places we found the remains of villages, consisting of a number of houses, but they were all abandoned, while the people we encountered were living, one or two families together, in small temporary camps. In all, we saw not more than a hundred of these people along the main river, and it is doubtful whether the whole population is more than two or three times that number."*

*J. E. Spurr-Government Report.