s and polar bears, and General
Benjamin F. Butler, representative from Massachusetts, said
in the House: "If we are to pay this amount for Russia's
friendship during the war, then give her the $7,200,000 and
tell her to keep Alaska." Representative Washburn, of
Wisconsin, exclaimed: "I defy any man on the face of the
earth to produce any evidence that an ounce of gold has ever
been found in Alaska."

To-day Alaska is yielding in gold $10,000,000 per year; its
fisheries are among the richest in the world, including more
than half the salmon yield of the United States; its forests
are of enormous value; its fur-seal harvest is without a
rival; its territory is traversed by one of the greatest
rivers of the world, two thousand miles long and with more
than a thousand miles of navigable waters, and it promises
to become an important farming and stock-raising region. As
for extent, it is large enough to cover more than twenty of
our States. In revenue it has repaid the United States the
original outlay and several millions more; while, aside from
its gold product, its fisheries have netted $100,000,000 and
its furs $80,000,000 since its acquisition. Seward, then,
was wise in looking upon this purchase as the greatest
achievement of his life, though he truly said that it would
take the country a generation to find out Alaska's value.

The most dramatic and interesting portion of the story of
Alaska is its gold-mining enterprise, and it is of this,
therefore, that we propose to speak. The discovery of placer
gold deposits in British Columbia led naturally to the
surmise that this precious metal might be found farther
northward, and as early as 1880 wandering gold-hunters had
made their way over the passes from Cassiar or inward from
the coast and were trying the gravel bars of tributaries of
the Yukon, finding the yellow metal at several places.

[Illustration: MUIR GLACIER IN ALASKA.]

The first important find along the Yukon was made on Stewart
River in 1885, about $100,000 being taken out in two
summers. The next year a good find was made at Forty-Mile
Creek, finds being made later on Sixty-Mile Creek, Birch
Creek, and other streams. On Birch Creek arose Circle City,
named from its proximity to the Arctic circle, and growing
into a well-built and well-conducted little town.

Meanwhile a valuable find had been made on Douglas Island,
one of the long chain of islands that bound the western
coast line, and this has