where. But it was years after that
when two Indian boys, hunting on Chicagof Island, lay down to drink at a
stream, and, behold, in the shimmering water was white rock with yellow,
glittering particles dancing in the clear stream. With the fear it was
but fools gold they took specimens and marked the place where they were
found. When they reached Sitka they submitted these samples to Judge
DeGroff, and to Professor Kelly of the Sheldon Jackson School. It was
pronounced to be gold, pure shining, yellow gold, and richer than the
most sanguine had hoped for. After much labor and many disappointments
the ledge was located from which the float came, and today that mine,
the Chicagof it is called, is known as the richest and best paying mine
in the United States in proportion to the money invested, and more than
one fortune has been taken out of the tunnels in the mountain.

Off the shores of the continent, reaching far off to the westward almost
to the shores of Asia are vast fishing grounds, perhaps the greatest in
the world. A great submarine plateau stretches along shore, past the
Aleutian Islands and into Bering Sea. There are estimated to be forty
thousand square miles of cod and halibut banks that are known to the
surveys. The fisheries of Gloucester and Cape Cod fade into
insignificance and the famous Newfoundland Banks are but small in
comparison.

Sitka goes back the farthest in historic memory of any city of the
Northwest. When Lewis and Clarke came to the mouth of the Columbia River
she was looking out over the Pacific from her stockaded walls and
Resanof was sailing to search for locations for new colonies. When
Astoria was founded she was placing her outpost on the Russian River in
California. Before San Francisco was a city she sent her bidarkas to
take the sea-otter from under the very noses of the Padres in their
missions. Here the civilization of the East met the progress of the
West, the Orient and the Occident met here and met without bloodshed.
Sitka, with her wealth of fisheries in the waters at her doors, with her
wealth of mineral in the ledges at her back, with the wealth of forest
on the mountain slopes around her, is in the same latitude as Edinburgh,
Scotland. The time is coming when she will have population, and wealth;
beauty she already has. What more is wanted for the happiness of her
people? Only energy, perseverance, and thrift, and those will be
forthcoming.

CHAPTER IX

WHAT TO S