Doubtless many wonderful discoveries await these explorers and their successors. New plants will be found, mountains of precious ore, a vast wealth of timber and water-power, and, it may be, strange creatures hitherto unknown to science.
It is believed by many that the mastodon, whose skeleton rears itself high above the elephant’s, in our museums, is not entirely extinct, but actually roams the tangled thickets of inner Alaska. It is stated that Professor John Muir himself lends countenance to this belief, asserting that he has seen the bones of these mighty animals, with the fresh flesh adhering to them. Certain it is that the great, curved tusks of the mammoth (as it is sometimes called) are found all over the southwestern slope of Africa, and that natives report encounters with huge living animals with similar tusks.
An animal which is unnamed, save by the coast hunters hereabouts, is the “Mt. St. Elias bear,” such as was shot by members of our party last week.
The head is very broad, and the fur a silvery gray. The skin is highly prized, not only for its rarity, but for its beauty, and Indians have been known to refuse a hundred dollars for one. They sometimes hang up such a skin in front of the “big house” of their village, as a talisman to aid them in future hunting, such is its magic power.
Within a few years the American bison, once so familiar in all stories of Western adventure, has become almost wholly extinct. A few individuals are said to lurk in the meadows and high tablelands of Alaska; but soon they must rank with the mastodon.
I have had time to but touch upon the mysteries of our great Northwestern Territories. Little by little its marvels, its wealth, its beauties will unfold to modern research, and the schoolboy of a generation hence will look back with incredulous wonder upon the maps, the charts and the scientific works upon Alaska that alone are available to-day.
“I know who wrote that,” said Randolph, looking meaningly at the editor.
The latter, however, took no notice of the implication, and, turning over the next sheet in the pile, read aloud the following poem, which was unsigned: