Its extent was practically unlimited, but the quality was found to be too poor for the use of steamers.
It is only within the past three years that the fine quality of much of the coal found in Alaska has been made known by government experts.
It was inconceivable that Congress should hesitate to enact such laws as would help to develop Alaska; yet it was not until late in the spring that bills were passed which greatly relieved the situation and insured the building of the road upon which the future of this district depends.
CHAPTER XXVIII
Cook Inlet is so sheltered and is favored by a climate so agreeable that it was called "Summer-land" by the Russians.
Across Kachemak Bay from Seldovia is Homer—another town of the inlet blessed with a poetic name. When I landed at its wharf, in 1905, it was the saddest, sweetest place in Alaska. It was but the touching phantom of a town.
We reached it at sunset of a June day.
A low, green, narrow spit runs for several miles out into the waters of the inlet, bordered by a gravelly beach. Here is a railroad running eight miles to the Cook Inlet coal-fields, a telephone line, roundhouses, machine-shops, engines and cars, a good wharf, some of the best store buildings and residences in Alaska,—all painted white with soft red roofs, and all deserted!