Behring Sea, where it washes the shores of Alaska, from Norton Sound to Bristol Bay, is slowly growing more shallow, having but fifteen fathoms depth, in some places, forty miles off the west shore of the mainland, and growing shallower as it approaches the continent. This has caused a speculative writer to suggest the possible joining of Asia and America, at some future period, by the gradual filling up of Behring Sea. The reason of this is obvious. The Yukon River brings down from its course of two thousand miles and more many hundred tons of soil daily which it deposits along the coast, while the Kuskoquin River, second only to the Yukon in volume, is engaged in the same work about a hundred and fifty miles south of where the greater river empties into Norton Sound. These large water-ways carry, like the Mississippi, immense deposits to the sea, and the process has been going on night and day for no human being knows how long.
One hundred and fifty miles from the mouth of this Kuskoquin River the Moravians of Bethlehem, Pa., support a missionary establishment. The station is named Bethel, one of the most isolated points in Alaska, receiving a mail but once a year! Truly, nothing save fulfilling a conscientious sense of duty could compensate intelligent people for thus separating themselves from home and friends.
We have spoken of a peninsula making out at the north towards Asia, but this comparatively insignificant projection from the mainland should not be permitted to confuse the reader’s mind as regards the Alaska Peninsula, properly so called, which extends from the southern part of the Territory, ending in the islands which form the Aleutian group. This peninsula is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable in the world, being fifty miles broad and three hundred long, literally piled with mountains, some of which are but partially extinct volcanoes, emitting at the present time more or less smoke and ashes, sometimes accompanied by blazing gases discernible at night far away over land and sea, appearing to the midnight watch on board ship like a raging conflagration in the heavens. The principal islands of the group of which we have been speaking, and which stretch far away from the southwestern corner of the Alaska Peninsula towards Kamschatka, as though extending a cordial hand from the Occident to the Orient, are as follows: Unimak, with a volcanic peak nine thousand feet high; Unalaska, whose peak is five thousand seven hundred feet high; Atka, with a height of four thousand eight hundred feet; Kyska, which is crowned by an elevation of three thousand seven hundred feet; and Attoo, whose tallest peak is over three thousand feet. This island is just about four hundred miles from the Asiatic coast. Unimak has a large lake of sulphur within its borders, and all of these islands have more or less hot springs. From those in Unalaska loud reports issue at intervals, like the boom of cannon, recalling our late similar experience in the Yellowstone Park.
Alaska constitutes the northwestern portion of the American continent, and has a coast line exceeding eleven thousand miles. The extreme length of the Territory, north and south, is eleven hundred miles, and its breadth is eight hundred. It is bounded on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by British Columbia, on the south by the Pacific Ocean, and on the west by Behring Strait and the North Pacific. Our geographies and encyclopædias help us to little more than the boundaries of this great Territory, which contains nearly six hundred thousand square miles. The latest published estimates give the aggregate number of square miles as nineteen thousand less than the amount we have named, but Governor Swineford and other residents of the Territory believe it to be an underestimate. As there is no actual survey extant, the figures given can only be a reasonable approximation to the true number. The boundary dividing Alaska and British Columbia was settled by treaty between England and Russia in 1825, and the same line is recognized to-day as separating our possessions in this quarter from those of Great Britain. Alaska is as large as all of the New England and Middle States, with Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Kentucky, and Tennessee combined. So far as size is concerned, the Territory is, therefore, an empire in itself, being equal in area to seventy-one States like Massachusetts, and containing as many square miles as England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, France, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, and Belgium united. It has been estimated by competent judges that, with its islands, it has a coast line equal to the circumference of the globe. Very few of our people, even among the educated class, have an adequate idea of the immensity of this northwestern Territory, two thirds of which abounds in available resources, only awaiting development. Were Alaska situated on our Atlantic coast it would extend from Maine to Florida.
Miss Kate Field, in a comprehensive article already quoted from, published in the “North American Review,” justly censuring Congress for its supineness and ignorance in relation to Alaska, says: “American citizens, living comfortably on the Atlantic seaboard, knowing their own wants and dictating terms to their submissive representatives, take little heed of those new additions to the United States which are destined to be the crowning glory of the Republic. When a nation is so big as to render portions of it a terra incognita to those who make the laws, there’s something rotten this side of Denmark!... The march of empire goes on in spite of human fallibility, and now the land of the midnight sun knocks at the door of Congress. She is twenty-three years old, and asks to be treated as though she were of age. The big-wigs at Washington rub their eyes, put on their spectacles, and wonder what this Hyperborean hubbub means?”
In examining the geographical characteristics of Alaska, we observe a peculiarity in its outlying islands which is also found in the construction of the continents. They all have east of their southern points series of islands. Thus, Alaska has the Sitkan or Alexander group; Africa has Madagascar; Asia has Ceylon; Australia has the two large islands of New Zealand; and America has the Falkland Islands. Alaska is the great island region of the United States.
It is not for us to enter into the brief history of the country, that is, brief as known to us, but it is well to fix in the mind the fact that Russia’s title was derived from prior discovery. Behring first saw the continent in this region of North America, July 18, 1741, in latitude 58° 28′, and two days later anchored in a bay near a point which he called St. Elias, a name which he also gave to the great mountain overshadowing the neighboring shore. It is sufficient for our purpose that we know this Territory was purchased from Russia by our government in 1867, after that country had occupied it a little more than a century, paying therefor the sum of seven million two hundred thousand dollars. It has been truly said that it was practically giving away the country on the part of Russia; but doubtless diplomatic reasons influenced the Tzar, who would much rather have presented it outright to the United States than to have it, by conquest or otherwise, fall into the hands of England, who was known to crave its possession as connected with her Pacific coast interests. So when the first Napoleon sold us Louisiana, he did so not alone in consideration of the money, which was doubtless much needed by his treasury,—amounting to sixty million francs,—but because he was not willing to leave this distant territory a prey to Great Britain in the event of hostilities between France and England, which were then imminent. He was glad, as he remarked, “to establish forever the power of the United States, and give to England a maritime rival destined to humble her pride;” adding, “It is for the interest of France that America should be great and strong.”
Alaska was a white elephant to Russia, but in our hands it has already proved a bonanza.
Any one can now see that the sum named as an equivalent for this colossal territory was a trifling value to place upon it, when its great extent is realized, together with its vast mineral wealth and inexhaustible supply of fish, fur, and timber. It is in fact the only great game and fur preserve left in the Western world, inviting the trapper and hunter to reap a rich return for their industry. Nowhere else on this continent do wild animals more abound, or enjoy such immunity from harm, as is afforded them in the dense, half-impenetrable forests of Alaska, where Nature herself becomes our gamekeeper, preventing the too rapid extinction of animal life.
From a lease in favor of the Alaska Commercial Company of San Francisco, giving them the exclusive right to take seals on the Prybiloff group of islands, our government has received four and one half per cent. interest, annually, during the last nineteen years, on the entire purchase-money paid to Russia. This same company, whose term is just about to expire, would gladly renew the lease with our government at a considerable advance upon the amount heretofore paid; but it is an open question whether the continuance of this great monopoly is for the best interest of Alaska, when considered in all its bearings.