GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES.
According to the terms of the treaty between the United States and
Russia, the boundaries of Alaska are as follows:
"Commencing from the southernmost point of the island called Prince
of Wales Island, which point lies in the parallel of 54° 40´ north
latitude, and between the 131° and 133° west longitude (meridian of
Greenwich), the said line shall ascend to the north along the channel
called Portland Channel, as far as the point of the continent where it
strikes 56° north latitude; from this last mentioned point, the line of
demarcation shall follow the summit of the mountains situated parallel
to the coast as far as the point of intersection of the 141st degree
of west longitude (of the same meridian) and finally from the said
point of intersection the said meridian line of the 141st degree in its
prolongation as far as the frozen ocean.
"With reference to the line of demarcation laid down in the preceding
article it is understood:
"1st. That the island called Prince of Wales Island shall belong wholly
to Russia (now by this cession to the United States).
"2d. That whenever the summit of the mountains which extend in a
direction parallel to the coast from the 56th degree of north latitude
to the point of intersection of the 141st degree of west longitude
shall prove to be at the distance of more than ten marine leagues from
the ocean, the limit between the British possession and the line of
coast which is to belong to Russia as above mentioned (that is to say,
the limit to the possessions ceded by this convention), shall be formed
by a line parallel to the winding of the coast, and which shall never
exceed the distance of ten marine leagues therefrom."
The boundary, in 1825, when this description was made, was a
theoretical one based on the charts placed before the negotiators,
which they doubtless assumed to be a substantially correct expression
of geographical facts. The country through which the line passes was
then substantially unexplored.
Much survey work has been done in recent years, with the object of
determining more accurately the boundary between Alaska and the British
possessions in North America; but the task is not yet complete. The
general outlines of the country, however, are familiar to all, and
recent maps indicate its boundaries on all sides with substantial
accuracy. The whole territory may be roughly divided into six parts, as
follows:
1. The Arctic division, containing 125,245 square miles, and comprising
all that portion of the North American continent between the one
hundred and forty-first meridian in the east and Cape Prince of Wales,
or Behring Strait, in the west, the Arctic Ocean in the north, and
having for its southern boundary a line indicating the watershed
between the Yukon River system and the streams emptying into the Arctic
and impinging upon the coast of Behring Sea just north of Port Clarence.
2. The Yukon division, containing 176,715 square miles, and comprising
the valley of the Yukon River as far as it lies within our boundaries
and its tributaries from the north and south. This division is bounded
by the Arctic division in the north, the one hundred forty-first
meridian in the east, and Behring Sea in the west. The southern
boundary lies along a line indicating the watershed between the Yukon
and the Kuskokvim, Sushetno, and Copper Rivers, and runs from the
above-mentioned meridian in the east to the coast of Behring Sea, in
the vicinity of Hazen Bay, in the west. The island of St. Lawrence, in
Behring Sea, is included in this division.
3. The Kuskokvim division, containing 114,975 square miles, bounded
on the north by the Yukon division, and comprising the valleys of the
Kuskokvim, the Togiak, and the Nushegak Rivers, and the intervening
system of lakes. The eastern boundary of this division is a line
running along the main Alaskan range of mountains from the divide
between the Kuskokvim and Tennanah Rivers down to the low, narrow
isthmus dividing Moller Bay from Zakharof Bay, on the Alaska peninsula.
Behring Sea washes the whole west and south coasts of this division,
which also includes Nunivak Island.
4. The Aleutian division, containing 14,610 square miles, and
comprising the Alaska peninsula westward of the isthmus between Moller
and Zakharof Bays and the whole chain of islands from the Shumagin
group in the east to Attoo in the west, including also the Pribylof or
fur-seal islands.
5. The Kadiak division, containing 70,884 square miles, and comprising
the south coast of the Aliaska peninsula down to Zakharof Bay, with
the adjacent islands, the Kadiak group of islands, the islands and
coasts of Cook's Inlet, the Kenai peninsula, and Prince William Sound,
with the rivers running into them. The main Alaskan range bounds this
division in the north and west. Its eastern limit is the one hundred
and forty-first meridian, which intersects the coast-line in the
vicinity of Mount St. Elias, while the south shores of the division are
washed by that section of the North Pacific named the Gulf of Alaska.
6. The south-eastern division, containing 28,980 square miles, and
comprising the coast from Mount St. Elias in the north to Portland
Canal, in latitude 54° 40', in the south, together with the islands of
the Alexander Archipelago between Cross Sound and Cape Fox. The eastern
boundary of this division is the rather indefinite line established
by the Anglo-Russian and Russian-American treaties of 1824 and 1825
respectively, following the summits of a chain of mountains supposed to
run parallel with the coast at a distance not greater than three marine
leagues from the sea between the head of Portland Canal and Mount St.
Elias.
The Arctic division is situated almost entirely above the Arctic
circle and is known to explorers only from observations made along the
seacoast. The interior consists doubtless of frozen plains and low
ranges of hills, intersected by a few shallow and sluggish streams. The
only rivers known to emerge from this part of Alaska are the Colville,
the Kok, the Inland or Noatak, the Kooak, the Selawik and the Buckland.
There are many villages scattered along the coast and others are
reported to exist further up on all these rivers. The coast settlements
are visited every year by many vessels engaged in whaling, hunting and
trading. Their inhabitants possess great commercial genius and energy,
and carry on an extensive traffic with the natives of the Asian coast,
their common trading-ground being at Behring Strait.
The only mineral of any value that is found on this coast is coal,
of which there are several good veins at Cape Lisburne. The chief
attraction for the navigators who visit the coast are furs, oil and
walrus ivory. The whaling industry is already beginning to decline
here as it has done in every other region of the world. Many seals are
found here and polar bears are numerous. A few reindeer are found on
the coast and moose and mountain sheep are said to be numerous in the
interior. Muskrats and squirrels abound everywhere and their skins
are offered for sale in large quantities. Foxes also are plentiful,
especially the white variety, and their skins are much sought for by
the American and European markets. Aquatic birds of all kinds are found
in countless hosts. The only fish of value is the salmon.
About thirty villages are known in this region, their total population
being a little over 3,000.
The Yukon division is the largest and in many respects most important
of all. As this volume is so largely devoted to a description of the
great river and the country it traverses little need be said regarding
it here. Numerous trading posts have been established and the waters of
the river are plied by steamboats. No mineral deposits in large paying
quantities have yet been discovered, but it is believed that important
gold mines will yet be found. The river abounds in fish and the forests
which border it in game. High as the latitude is the summers are very
warm and the vegetable growths of the country are luxuriant. The
coast line of this division is particularly dreary. It is inhabited
by a hardy race of seal and walrus hunters, who occupy numerous small
villages. At Port Clarence, just south of Cape Prince of Wales, three
or four villages are clustered around a fine harbor. King's Island or
Oukivok is a small, high island, surrounded by almost perpendicular
cliffs of basalt. On it is a village composed of about forty houses,
which are simple excavations in the side of the cliffs. The inhabitants
live almost entirely by walrus and seal hunting. On the shores of
Golovin Sound small deposits of lead and silver have been found. The
most important point on the coast is St. Michael, where there are
several trading agencies. The Island of St. Lawrence belongs properly
to this division. It had originally a population of about 1,000, but
famine and disease have diminished it to one-half that number. The
people are Asiatic Esquimaux. There are in all this division of Alaska
about seventy-five known settlements, with a total population of nearly
7,000, of whom perhaps about twenty-five are white, 2,500 Athabaskan
and the rest Esquimaux.
The Kuskokvim division is, on the whole, poor in such natural products
as white men desire, and it has therefore been little visited. It
contains a few mineral deposits, however, including cinnabar, antimony
and silver. Game and fur bearing animals are not as numerous as in
other parts of Alaska, but there are many seals in the sea and river,
and minks and foxes are quite numerous. Many salmon are also found in
the river and they form a leading article of food for the natives.
There are nearly a hundred villages in this division with about 9,000
inhabitants, nearly all of them being Esquimaux.
The Aleutian division comprises the western part of the Alaska
peninsula and the long range of islands extending toward the Asiatic
coast. These islands appear to be merely a continuation of the Alaskan
range of mountains. Many of them contain volcanic peaks, some of
which are still active, and all the islands are mountainous. The soil
is altogether treeless save for some dwarf willows, but there is a
luxuriant growth of grass. On this account it was once thought that
cattle could be successfully raised here, but the long and stormy
winters made the experiment a failure. The people of these islands are
doubtless of Esquimau origin, although distinct in language and in
habits from the remainder of that race. Their twenty-five or thirty
villages are inhabited by about 2,500 people, perhaps 100 of the number
being white. Their principal industry consists in fishing and taking
seals, sea-otters and other marine animals.
The Kadiak division comprises the southern side of the Alaska
peninsula, numerous adjacent islands and the coast of the mainland
eastward to Mount St. Elias. Its inhabitants are of Esquimau stock
and resemble greatly those of the Kuskokvim division. The coast is
frequented by great numbers of walrus, which animal provides the
inhabitants with food, material for their canoes and ivory, which is
used for money and as an object of trade. Many whales are also taken
here. On the land there are numerous reindeer, brown bears and foxes,
otters and minks. The island of Kadiak has for a century and a quarter
been one of the most important portions of this division of Alaska. It
was here that some of the earliest Russian settlements were made, and
the population at the present time is considerable. There are several
villages devoted almost entirely to the building of ships and boats.
North of the Kadiak group is the great estuary known as Cook's Inlet,
which was first visited by the Russian traders a hundred years ago
and was the scene of many desperate conflicts between rival settlers
as well as between the Russians and the natives. The natives here are
almost giants in size and are strong, active and war-like. Their houses
are superior to those of the Esquimaux, being constructed above ground
of logs and bark. They are expert fishermen, and the waters in this
region abound in salmon and other fish, and the land in huge bears,
moose, mountain sheep, wolves and numerous smaller animals, while geese
and ducks and other wild birds are found by the million. Timber exists
here in great abundance, especially in the valley of the Copper River.
There are about fifty villages in the Kadiak division with a population
of 4,500.
The Southeastern division consists of the narrow strip of coast-land
from Mount St. Elias southward to Portland Canal. It is densely wooded
and exceedingly mountainous. The coast is deeply indented with bays and
sheltered by islands. The principal trees are spruce and yellow cedar.
On many of the islands of the Alexander Archipelago coal has been
discovered. Copper and gold have also been found. The fur trade is not
now nearly as valuable as in former years, although it is still large
and profitable. The waters swarm with salmon, halibut, herring and
other fish. The climate is not nearly as cold as might be expected in
this latitude, but the rainfall is very heavy, an average of 250 days
in the year being stormy. The fifty or more villages contain a total
population of nearly 8,000, including about 300 whites.
We know, says Dr. Grewgink, the eminent Russian scientist, of no more
extensive theatre of volcanic activity than the Aleutian Islands, the
Alaska peninsula, and the west coast of Cook's Inlet. Here we have
confined within the limits of a single century all the known phenomena
of this kind: the elevation of mountain chains and islands, the sinking
of extensive tracts of the earth's surface, earthquakes, eruptions
of lava, ashes and mud, the hot springs and exhalations of steam and
sulphuric gases. Not only does the geological formation of most of
the islands and a portion of the continent point to volcanic origin
or elevation, but we have definite information of volcanic activity
on twenty-five of the Aleutian Islands. On these islands forty-eight
craters have been enumerated by Veniaminof and other conscientious
observers, and in addition to these we have on the Alaska peninsula
four volcanoes, two on Cook's Inlet, one on Prince William Sound, one
on Copper River, and one in the vicinity of Sitka (Mount Edgecombe);
three other peaks situated between Edgecombe and the Copper River have
not been definitely ascertained to be volcanic. The distance from the
Wrangell volcano, in the vicinity of Copper River, to the Sitkan
Island is 1,505 nautical miles. We have every reason to believe that
the Near Islands (the westernmost of the Aleutian group) are also
extinct craters; and thus we find one continuous chain of volcanoes
from Wrangell to the Commander Islands (Behring and Copper), pointing
to the existence of a subterranean channel of lava finding its outlet
or breathing-hole through the craters of this region. The nearest
volcanoes to the south of this line are Mount Baker on the American
continent, in latitude 48° 48', and the craters of the Kurile chain of
islands on the coast of Asia. That a subterranean connection exists
between this long line of craters is indicated by the fact that
whenever volcanic activity grows slack in one section of the chain it
increases in violence at some other point, an observation which has
been confirmed by all observers.
From all information on the subject at our disposal it appears that
the craters of Mount Fairweather, Cryllon, and Edgecombe, and Mount
Calder (Prince of Wales Island), have not been active since the middle
of the last century, and as the universal law of volcanic activity
seems to place the frequency of eruptions in an inverse ratio to the
height of the volcanoes, we might reasonably expect that the season
of rest for these craters will be a prolonged one; but how terrible
and devastating must be the awakening of the sleeping furnaces when it
occurs. With regard to Mount St. Elias, we have many authentic data as
to its volcanic nature. Belcher and Wrangell consider that the black
ridges descending from the summits of the mountains, and the fact that
the glaciers on Copper River exhibit a covering of vegetation, as proof
of the volcanic character of the mountain. The first phenomena may
rest entirely upon an optic delusion, as it is not at all certain that
the black streaks consist of lava or ashes, while the appearance of
vegetation on the surface of glaciers on Copper River is very probably
due to the fall of volcanic ashes; the latter phenomenon may be traced
as easily and with far more probability to the Wrangell volcano.
One of the most impressive physical features of the whole Territory is
the stupendous glacier at Muir Inlet. This ice-field, says a recent
writer, enters the sea with a front two or three hundred feet above
the water and a mile wide. Fancy a wall of blue ice, splintered into
columns, spires and huge crystal masses, with grottoes, crevices and
recesses higher than Bunker Hill Monument and a mile in width! It is a
spectacle that is strangely beautiful in its variety of form and depth
of color, and at the same time awful in its grandeur. And not alone is
the sight awe-inspiring. The ice-mountain is almost constantly breaking
to pieces with sounds that resemble the discharge of heavy guns or
the reverberations of thunder. At times an almost deafening report is
heard, or a succession of them, like the belching of a whole park of
artillery, when no outward effect is seen. It is the breaking apart of
great masses of ice within the glacier. Then some huge berg topples
over with a roar and gigantic splash that may be heard several miles,
the waters being thrown aloft like smoke. A great pinnacle of ice is
seen bobbing about in wicked fashion, perchance turning a somersault
in the flood before it settles down to battle for life with the sun
and the elements on its seaward cruise. The waves created by all this
terrible commotion even rock the steamer and wash the shores miles
away. There is scarcely five minutes in the whole day or night without
some exhibition of this kind. There are mountains each side of the
glacier, the one upon the right, or south shore, being the highest.
High up on the bare walls are seen the scoriated and polished surfaces
produced by glacial action. The present glacier is retrograding quite
rapidly, as may be seen by many evidences of its former extent, as
well as by the concurrent testimony of earlier visitors. On either
side is a moraine half a mile in width, furrowed and slashed by old
glacial streams which have given place in turn to others higher up the
defile as the glacier recedes. These moraines are composed of earth and
coarse gravel, with occasional large boulders. On the north side the
material is more of a clayey sort, at least in part, and the stumps
of an ancient forest have been uncovered by the action of a glacial
river, or overwhelmed by the icy flood. Some scientists claim these
forests are in reality pre-glacial, and many thousands of years old.
The interior of the great moraines is yet frozen, and at the head of
one of the little ravines formed by former glacial river discharges,
a little stream still trickles forth from a diminutive ice cavern.
Notwithstanding the contiguity of the ice itself, and the generally
frigid surroundings, blue-bells and other flowers bloom on the moraine.
In the centre of the glacier, some two miles from its snout, is a rocky
island, the top of some ancient peak the great mill of ice has not yet
ground down.
It is interesting to see how the massive stream of ice conforms
itself to its shores, separating above the obstacle and reuniting
below. On approaching or departing from Muir Inlet, the voyager may
look back upon this literal sea of ice and follow its streams up to
the snowfields of the White Mountains, which form the backbone of the
peninsula between Glacier Bay and Lynn Canal. The following facts
relating to the Muir glacier, its measurement and movement, are derived
wholly from Professor Wright's notes. Roughly speaking, the Muir
glacier may be said to occupy an amphitheatre which has the dimensions
of about twenty-five miles from north to south, and thirty miles from
east to west. The opening of this amphitheatre at Muir Inlet is toward
the south south-east. It is two miles across from the shoulder of one
mountain to the other at the outlet. Into the amphitheatre pour nine
glaciers, and the sub-branches that are visible make the affluents more
than twenty in number. Four of the main branches come in from the east,
but these have already spent their force on reaching the focus of the
amphitheatre. The first tributary from the south-west also practically
loses its force before reaching the main current. The main flow is from
two branches coming from the north-west and two from the north. The
motion is here much more rapid. Observations made upon three portions
of the main glacier, respectively 300, 1,000 and 1,500 yards from the
front, showed the movement to be 135 feet at the first point, 65 at
the second and 75 at the third, per day. The summit of the lower point
was a little over 300 feet above the water, the second 400 feet and
the third considerably more, probably 500 feet. The motion rapidly
decreased on approaching the medial moraines brought down by the
branches from the east. Along a line moving parallel with that of the
greatest motion, and half a dozen miles east from it, the rate observed
at two points was about 10 feet per day. Thus we get an average daily
motion in the main channel of the ice flow, near its mouth, of about
40 feet across a section of one mile. The height of the ice above the
water in front, at the extreme point, was found to be 226 feet. Back a
few hundred feet the height is a little over 300 feet, and at a quarter
of a mile 400 feet. A quarter of a mile out in front of the glacier the
water is 85 fathoms, or 510 feet deep. Thus Professor Wright estimates
that a body of ice 735 feet deep, 5,000 feet wide and 1,200 feet long
passed out into the bay in the thirty days he was there, this movement
and discharge taking place at the rate of 149,000,000 cubic feet per
day. He says that after the fall of a large mass of ice from the
glacier into the bay, the beach near his camp two and one-half miles
distant from the glaciers, would be wrapped in foam by the waves. One
of many large masses he saw floating about projected some 60 feet out
of water, and was some 400 feet square. Estimating the general height
of the berg above the water to be 30 feet, and its total depth 250
feet, the contents of the mass would be 40,000,000 cubic feet.
Transcriber's Notes:
Simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors were
silently corrected.
Anachronistic and non-standard spellings retained as printed.
Added missing CHAPTER # heading to chapters 14, 15, and 16 to
agree with TOC.
Italics markup is enclosed in _underscores_.
End of Project Gutenberg's Along Alaska's Great River, by Frederick Schwatka