Hyda fashion their buoyant and graceful canoes, both large and small, from spruce logs, and split from them also the huge planks used in the construction of their houses. The lumber manufactured from the Sitka spruce is much less durable than the yellow cedar, very knotty, and consequently not adapted for shipbuilding.

3. HEMLOCK (Abies mertensiana).-Though this tree generally exceeds the spruce in size, it is of rare occurrence, much less valuable as timber, but well adapted for fuel.

BALSAM FIR (Abies canadensis).-This tree is found only in small, scattered bodies, and is of little value as timber, but the natives use its bark for tanning and for other purposes.

5. SCRUB PINE (Pinus contorta).-The scrub pine is found throughout the interior of Alaska in small, scattered bodies up to the highest latitudes, but it is of no value as timber.

Thus it will be seen that the forests of Alaska are altogether coniferous, as the small bodies of birch and the alder and willow thickets on the lower Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers can scarcely be considered to come under this head. Aside from the yellow cedar, which is rare, the timber wealth of Alaska consists of the Sitka spruce, which is not only abundant and large (trees of from 3 to 4 feet in diameter being quite common in southeastern Alaska and Prince William Sound), but also generally accessible.

To give even an approximate estimate of the area of timbered lands in Alaska is at present impossible, in view of our incomplete knowledge of the extent of mountain ranges, which, though falling within the timber limits, must be deducted from the superficial area of forest covering.

A few small sawmills of exceedingly limited capacity have been erected at various points in southeastern Alaska, to supply the local demand of trading posts and mining camps, but finished building lumber is still largely imported even into this heavily timbered region. In all western Alaska, but one small sawmill is known to exist, which is on Wood Island, St. Paul Harbor, Kadiak. This mill was first set up to supply sawdust for packing ice, but since the collapse of that industry, its operations have been spasmodic and not worth mentioning. Lumber from Puget Sound and British Columbian mills is shipped to nearly all ports in western Alaska for the use of whites and half-breeds, while the natives in their more remote settlements obtain planks and boards by the very laborious process of splitting logs with iron or ivory wedges. On the treeless isles of the Shumagin and Aleutian groups, as well as in the southern settlements of the Alaska peninsula, even firewood is imported from more favored sections of the Territory and commands high prices.

The driftwood washed upon the shores of Bering Sea and the Arctic is of very little value as building material and can not be worked into lumber.

VII.

Agricultural Resources.

In regard to the agricultural resources of Alaska, Mr. Petroff says that it has been settled by patient experiments that cereal crops can not be grown. Nor can the fruit trees and small fruits of the United States be cultivated with success, unless it be the strawberry and the cranberry. He continues:

Taking up the subject of the vegetable garden, it is found that there are localities in Alaska where for the last eighty years, or even more, up to the present date good potatoes have been raised, though I should say, perhaps, that the raising of these tubers is not a certain success year after year, except at one or two points within the Alexander Archipelago, namely, at the mouth of the Stakhin River, at Fort Wrangel, and on Prince of Wales Island. The potato grounds of Alaska, however, can with due care and diligence be made to furnish in the Alexander Archipelago, in Cook Inlet, at Kadiak Island and islets contiguous, and at Bristol Bay a positive source of food supply to the inhabitants. It is not generally known that on Afognak Island there are nearly 100 acres of land, dug up in patches here and there, which are planted by the inhabitants and from which they gather an annual harvest of potatoes and turnips; but there are no fields spread out, squared up, and plowed anywhere in Alaska. The little openings in the forest or the cleared sides of a gently sloping declivity in sheltered situations are taken up by the people, who turn out with rude spades, of their own manufacture principally, for the purpose of subjugating and overturning the sod. Many of the gardens, noticeably those at the Kadiak village, are close by the settlement, while others are at some distance.

The potato crop at Kadiak in 1880 was a total failure, and this happens at intervals of from four to six years. The winter preceding the planting in 1880 was an unusually cold and protracted one, and the season, short at the best, was cut off by unwonted early frosts during September and the latter part of August. The usual growing season, however, opens early in June, from the 1st

to the 10th, and the potatoes are planted in May, coming up and growing freely until October, when they are harvested. This growth of potatoes, fairly established and well defined, presents the only firm and tangible evidence of agricultural capacity within the limits of Alaska. The turnip grows and flourishes wherever the potato succeeds.

Mr. Petroff says, in conclusion, that although Alaska will not support any considerable number of people as agriculturists, it is apparent that the existence of those who live in the Territory can be improved by better attention to the development of the resources latent in the soil in certain localities. The people are disinclined to labor in this direction, preferring the profits of hunting. It will be found that points located by the Russians eighty years ago as most suitable for gardening are the best to-day.

Captain Beardslee, United States Navy, speaking of the agricul tural conditions in the vicinity of Sitka, says (Reports on Affairs in Alaska, Senate Ex. Doc. No. 71, Forty-seventh Congress, first session, p. 125):

Whether it be due to the change of climate through the clearing away of many acres of forest or to improved methods I can not say, but for several years past excellent vegetables, such as potatoes, cabbages, etc., have been raised yearly in the neighborhood of Sitka and Wrangel. Near Sitka there are a large number of plots under cultivation. I have seen, two seasons in

succession, lettuce of several varieties, cabbages a yard across before they began to head, and 8 to 10 inches in diameter headed; cauliflower weighing from 10 to 15 pounds, early rose and peachblow potatoes ranging from 3 to 30 ounces each, and each hill yielding over half a bucket full; turnips of very large size, and cress, radishes, etc., in profusion; green pease of excellent quality, and beds bordered by gooseberries and currant bushes, producing loads of fruit. My lettuce bed kept me supplied from June to September.

As to the character of the country in the Yukon region, Mr. Dall (Alaska and its Resources, p. 433) says that it varies from rolling and somewhat rocky hills to broad and marshy plains, extending for miles on either side of the river. The underlying rocks in great part are Azoic, being conglomerate, syenite and quartzite. The south shore of Norton Sound and portions of the Kadiak

Peninsula are basalt and lava. There is on the northeast shore of Norton Sound an abundance of sandstone and clay beds containing lignite. Sandstone is also abundant on the Yukon, alternating with the Azoic rocks. The superincumbent soil differs in different places. In some localities, it is clayey, and in such situations is quite frequently covered with sphagnum, which always impoverishes the soil immediately beneath it. In others, it is light and sandy, and over a large extent of country it is the richest alluvial, composed of very fine sand, mud, and vegetable matter, brought down by the river and forming deposits of indefinite depth. The soil is usually frozen at a depth of 3 or 4 feet in ordinary situations. In colder ones, it remains icy to within 18 inches of the surface. This layer of frozen soil is 6 or 8 feet thick. Below that depth, the soil is destitute of ice, except in very unusual situations. Lieutenant Allen (Report on Expedition to Alaska, 1885)

says:

* * *

I believe that lettuce, radishes, turnips, beans, peas, potatoes, carrots, and possibly buckwheat and barley, can be raised in favored localities on the middle and upper Yukon and Tanana. The climatic conditions of the coast do not prevail here; there is not as much humidity. . . . The summers, though short, are very hot. The sun is almost continually above the horizon, and the thermometer has been known to read 112° and 115° F. Although the soil usually remains frozen the year round at a depth of 1 or 2 feet below the surface, this would not necessarily interfere with agricultural pursuits. By cultivation and proper drainage, the distance of the ice bed below the surface would be considerably increased.

CATTLE.

With reference to cattle and other live stock, Mr. Petroff says: There have been repeated attempts to raise stock cattle, sheep, and hogs in large herds within the borders of Alaska. The subject is one in which the Russians first naturally took a deep interest, for they were fond of good living and were as desirous as any people could be to have the best of beef or mutton and the sweetest pork on their tables. They brought over hardy selections from the Siberian stock, placing the cattle at almost every point of importance for trial. The result, after years of patient and persistent attention, was that

the herds on Kadiak Island throve the best and became of real service in assisting to maintain the settlement. Here there is a very fine ranging ground for pasture, and in the summer there is the greatest abundance of nutritious grasses, but when the storms of October, freighted with snow, accompanied by cold and piercing gales, arrive and hold their own until the following May, the sleek, fat herd of September becomes very much worn and emaciated. It has given its owner an undue amount of trouble to shelter and feed. Hay, however, suitable for cattle, or at least to keep cattle alive, can be cut in almost any quantities desired for that purpose, but the stress of weather alone, even with abundance of this feed, depresses as it were and enfeebles the vitality of the stock, so that the herds on Kadiak Island have never increased to anything approximating a stock grower's drove, rarely exceeding 15 or 20 head at the most. Notable examples of small flocks of sheep which have been brought up since the transfer and turned out at Unalaska, Unga, and elsewhere have done well. The mutton of the Alaskan sheep when it is rolling in its own fat, as it were, is pronounced by epicures to be very fine; but the severe winters, which are not so cold as protracted--when the weather is so violent that the animals have to huddle for weeks in some dark, low shelter, cause a sweating or heating of their wool, which is detached and falls off-greatly enfeebling and emaciating them by spring. The practice of the traders at some places now is to bring beef cattle up in the spring from San Francisco, turn them out into the grazing grounds on the Aleutian Islands, Kadiak, and even to the north, where they speedily round out and flesh up into the very finest beeves by the middle or end of October, when they are slaughtered.

Horses, according to Mr. Petroff, have been kept on Wood Island, Kadiak Harbor, for years. A field of 12 acres of oats is regularly sown for their use. The oats grow and frequently head, but never ripen; the planters cut the green crop for haying purposes. Mules and horses have no economic value, there being little service for them on land.

REINDEER.

Dr. Jackson (Report on Introduction of Domestic Reindeer into Alaska, 1896), says that the vast territory of central and arctic Alaska, unfitted for agriculture or cattle raising, is abundantly supplied with long, fibrous white moss, the natural food of the reindeer. Taking the statistics of Norway and Sweden as a guide,