tigate its resources. The
Department of Agriculture tested its capacity for agriculture, the
Bureau of Education established schools and introduced reindeer from
Siberia, the Signal Service began to build telegraph lines and to
inspect the country as to the availability of its rivers and harbors for
navigation, and it became known by the Government that Alaska was richer
in resources by far than had been supposed. This knowledge was not
common to the public, and emigration to that region was tardy.

The United States could hardly have done more for the furtherance of the
development of the great rich district of Alaska, with its untold wealth
in minerals and its great possibilities in agriculture, than it did by
securing to the people of Alaska an opportunity to display their
resources and products to the inspection of the millions who have
visited the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. The exhibits shown by them
excited the utmost wonder and surprise in the minds of many witnessing
them, who had been in ignorance of the resources of their country.
Thousands have been led to investigate and seek further information. The
effect of the Alaska exhibit will undoubtedly be far-reaching and
permanent; nor can it be doubted that Congress will supplement this
contribution to Alaska's welfare in the near future by legislation which
shall secure the one great need of Alaska--inland transportation.

An appropriation of $50,000 for the Alaskan exhibit at the Louisiana
Purchase Exposition was made by act of Congress March 3, 1903, as
follows:

To enable the inhabitants of the district of Alaska to provide
and maintain an appropriate and creditable exhibit of the
products and resources of that district at the Louisiana
Purchase Exposition in the city of St. Louis, Missouri, in
nineteen hundred and four, and to erect and maintain on the site
of said exposition a suitable building to be used for the
purposes of exhibiting the products and resources of said
district, the sum of fifty thousand dollars, to be subject to
the order of the Secretary of the Interior, who is hereby
authorized to expend the same in such manner as in his judgment
will best promote the objects for which said sum is appropriated
in accordance with the rules and regulations to be prescribed by
him.

After the passage of the act of Congress which made appropriation for
the Alaska exhibit, providing that the sum ap