logs lying crosswise and in
confusion. I know not how far below me was the solid earth, for mats of
thick moss and deep beds of dead leaves filled the hollows between the
logs; but this log, nearly three feet in diameter, was above them all;
and out of it--from a seed no doubt imbedded in the bark--had sprung a
tree that is to-day as great in girth as the log that lies prostrate
beneath its roots. These mighty roots have clasped that log in an
everlasting embrace and struck down into the soil below. You can
conjecture how long the log has been lying there in that tangle of
mighty roots--yet the log is to-day as sound a bit of timber as one is
likely to find anywhere.

Alaska is buried under forests like these--I mean that part of it which
is not still cased in ice and snow. A late official gave me out of his
cabinet a relic of the past. It is a stone pestle, rudely but
symmetrically hewn,--evidently the work of the aborigines. This pestle,
with several stone implements of domestic utility, was discovered by a
party of prospectors who had dug under the roots of a giant tree. Eleven
feet beneath the surface, directly under the tree and surrounded by
gigantic roots, this pestle, and some others of a similar character,
together with mortars and various utensils, were scattered through the
soil. Most of the collection went to the Smithsonian Institute, and
perhaps their origin and history may be some day conjectured. How many
ages more, I wonder, will be required to develop the resources of this
vast out-of-door country?

When the tardy darkness fell upon Sitka--toward midnight--the town was
hardly more silent than it had been throughout the day. A few lights
were twinkling in distant windows; a few Indians were prowling about;
the water rippled along the winding shore; and from time to time as the
fresh gusts blew in from the sea, some sleepless bird sailed over us on
shadowy wings, and uttered a half-smothered cry that startled the
listener. Then, indeed, old Sitka, which was once called New Archangel,
seemed but a relic of the past, whose vague, romantic history will
probably never be fully known.

CHAPTER XIII.

Katalan's Rock.

Katalan's Rock towers above the sea at the top corner of Sitka. Below
it, on the one hand, the ancient colonial houses are scattered down the
shore among green lawns like pasture lands, and beside grass-grown
streets with a trail of dust in the middle of them. On the other hand,
t