large brickyard, the only establishment of the kind in the colony, from which all stations and settlements were supplied with the material for the old-fashioned Russian ovens or heaters.

About 30 miles down the coast from Kenai, there is another settlement deserving at least a passing notice. A number of "colonial citizens," or superannuated employees of the old Russian company, were ordered to settle some fifty or sixty years ago at Ninilchik, and their descendants live there still. Each family has quite a large garden patch of turnips and potatoes, yielding enough to allow the owners to dispose of a large surplus to traders and fishermen. They have quite a herd of cattle, and the women actually make butter; but they are not sufficiently advanced in farming lore to construct or use a churn, and the butter is made in a very laborious manner by shaking the cream in bottles. They also raise pigs and keep poultry, but on account of the hogs running on the seashore, digging clams and feeding upon kelp, and the chickens scratching among fish bones and other offal, both their poultry and their pork are fishy to such an extent as to be made unpalatable.

In the vicinity of Anchor Point, on Kuchekmak Gulf, and on Graham's or English Harbor, extensive coal veins appear along the bluffs and come to the surface. The Russian-American Company, jointly with a San Francisco firm, worked here for years to develop the mines and obtain a product good enough for the use of steamers and engines, but after sinking a large capital the enterprise was abandoned before the transfer of the Territory took place. A few remnants of the extensive buildings erected in connection with these mining operations still remain on the north shore of English Bay.

St. Paul, on the northern part of Kadiak Island, does a large fur trade. There are a number of salmon canneries on the island, employing in 1890, according to Longman's Gazetteer (p. 764), 1,100 hands. Karluk (population, 1,123) is said to have the largest cannery in the world. Kadiak (495), Alitak (420), and Afognak (409) are other villages on the island.

On the Aleutian Islands, there are many settlements. The one on Ounga Island has a population of about 200, according to Mr. Petroff. Belkowsky, on the southern end of the Aliaska Peninsula, has 300 inhabitants. Near Protassof (100 inhabitants) there are warm sulphur springs and ponds. Iliuliuk, on Iliuliuk, on Unalaska Island, is a point of considerable commercial importance, having a church, custom-house, trading establishments, wharves, etc.

Ni

kolsky, on the south of Unimak Island, has 127 inhabitants; it was formerly much larger. Nazan, on Atkha Island, has a population of 230, described by Mr. Petroff as thrifty and prosperous. St. Paul, on the Pribilof Islands, had in 1882 a population of 298. The Amukhta (172° longitude) and the Unimak (160° longitude) are the two safe passes between the islands.

St. Michaels, on Norton Sound, is one of the most important localities on the coast. It is a trading post, says Mr. Petroff, where rival firms have established their depots for the Yukon River and Arctic trade. The station keepers come down from the interior to the coast at the end of June or 1st of July, and each receives his allotment of goods to take back with him in sailboats and bidars during the few months when navigation on the river is not impeded by ice. The vessels supplying this depot can seldom approach the post before the end of June, on account of large bodies of drifting ice that beset the waters of Norton Sound and the straits between St. Lawrence Island and the Yukon delta. St. Michaels is the usual landing place for the Yukon Valley. Travelers follow a trail across the country, and reach Yukon some 392 miles from its mouth. Lieutenant Allen says that the distance from St. Michaels to the mouth of the Unalaklik River is 55 miles by coast. He ascended the river 14 miles to a village called Ulukuk, and followed the trail some 32 miles to the Autokakat River. A descent of this stream for 3 miles brought him to the Yukon.

Port Clarence, on the bay of the same name, is the place where whalers wait for their tenders before proceeding through the straits. The harbor is excellent. There is a reindeer farm here, and the population numbers 485. Point Hope (population 301), Cape Lisburne, Icy Cape, and Point Barrow are the most important points on the northern coast.

Nulato and Nuklakayet are trading posts on the Yukon River, the former being 467 miles from the sea, according to Lieutenant No. 86-3

Allen, and Nuklakayet 201 miles farther. Fort Yukon (about 300 miles distant from Nuklakayet) was formerly a trading post. Lieutenant Schwatka says it was abandoned about 1880 as not remunerative, and Fort Reliance and Belle Isle were established. Both of these have since been abandoned. At Fort Yukon, the river is said to be 7 miles wide.

Circle City, between Fort Yukon and Belle Isle, had a population in 1896 of 1,150. (Report on Introduction of Domestic Reindeer into Alaska, by Sheldon Jackson, D. D., Senate Doc. No. 49, Fifty-fourth Congress, second session.) Missions have been established and hospitals proposed. There are some 40 white women in the district.

VI.

Forests of Alaska-Varieties of Timber.

Speaking of the resources of Alaska, Mr. Petroff says:

The timber of Alaska extends over a much larger area than a great many surmise. It clothes the steep hills and mountain sides, and chokes up the valleys of the Alexander archipelago and the contiguous mainland; it stretches, less dense but still abundant, along that inhospitable reach of territory which extends from the head of Cross Sound to the Kenai Peninsula, where, reaching down to the westward and southwestward as far as the eastern half of Kadiak Island, and thence across Shelikof Strait, it is found on the mainland and on the peninsula bordering on the same latitude; but it is confined to the interior opposite Kadiak, not coming down to the coast as far eastward as Cape Douglas. Here, however, it impinges on the coast or Cook Inlet, reaching down to the shores and extending around to the Kenai Peninsula. the peninsula, above referred to, the timber line over the of the great area of Alaska will be found to follow the distances of from 100 to 150 miles from the seaboard, until that section of Alaska north of the Yukon mouth is reached, where a portion of the coast of Norton Sound is directly bordered by timber as far north as Cape Denbigh. From this point to the eastward and northeastward, a line may be drawn just above the Yukon and its immediate tributaries as the northern limit of timber of considerable extent.

any

From the interior of whole of the interior coast line, at varying

The trees, adds Mr. Petroff, are mostly evergreen, the spruce family preponderating to an overwhelming extent. Boards of the spruce are not adapted for nice finishing work in building, or in cabinet ware, or, indeed, in anything that requires a finish; for under the influence of slight degrees of heat, it sweats, exuding minute globules of gum or resin, sticky and difficult to remove. The white birch is found throughout the region that supports the spruce-scattered or in small bodies-chiefly along the water courses. The alder and willow are found on all the low lands, reaching far beyond the northern and western limit of the spruce.

A poplar, resembling our cottonwood, attaining great size under favorable circumstances, is also found in nearly all the timbered sections of Alaska south of the Arctic Circle. To the westward of the one hundred and forty-first meridian, no timber grows at an altitude higher than 1,000 feet above the sea level. A slightly curved line, beginning at the intersection of the coast hills of the east shore of Norton Sound with the Unalaklik River, passing across the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers, the mouth of the Nushagak, across the Alaska Peninsula, and impinging upon the North Pacific in the vicinity of Orlova Bay, on Kadiak Island, will serve as the western limit of spruce forest in Alaska.

With reference to quality, continues Mr. Petroff, the trees may be divided as follows:

1. YELLOW CEDAR (Cupressus nutkanensis).—This is one of the most valuable woods on the Pacific Coast, combining a fine, close texture, with great hardness, durability, and a peculiar but pleasant odor. The Russians named it "dushnik" (scented wood) on account of the last-named quality. In the immediate vicinity of Sitka, on Baranof and adjoining islands, this tree was nearly exterminated by the Russians, but on the Kehk Archipelago (Koo Island), and on Prince of Wales Island and a few others of the Alexander Archipelago, near the British Columbian frontier, considerable bodies of it can still be found, and beyond the line, in the Nass and Skeena River valleys, it is also abundant.

2. SITKA SPRUCE (Abies sitkensis).—This is the universal forest tree of Alaska, and is found of gigantic size on the islands of the Alexander Archipelago and on the shores of Prince William Sound. Its medium growth it appears to attain in the valleys of the Yukon and the Kuskokwim, while on the east side of Cook Inlet and on the more northern uplands, it is quite stunted and dwarfed. The Sitka spruce is most closely connected with the various requirements of all Alaskan natives in their domestic economy, as its timber is used in the construction of nearly every dwelling throughout the country, and even those tribes which inhabit barren coasts far removed from the limits of coniferous trees are supplied with it through means of freshets and ocean currents. The sappy outer portion of the wood furnishes splinters and torches that light up during the long months of winter the dark dwellings of interior tribes of Tinneh stock, who know not the oil lamp of their Innuit neighbors. The same material is also used for sledge runners on loose but crisp-frozen snow, over which iron or steel would drag with difficulty, as over deep, coarse sand. The Thlinket and the