and Redoubt volcanoes (about 12,000 feet), Drum (13,300 feet), Hayes (14,500 feet), Kimball (10,000 feet), Lituya (11,832 feet), Sanford (14,000 feet), Tillman (13,300 feet), and many others unmeasured. Many passes admit of travel routes (mere trails) from the coast across to the Kuskokwim, Yukon, and Tananá valleys. The Kenai Peninsula is an important part of this district.
(2) The Aliaskan and Aleutian District.—This is the mountainous prolongation of the continent southwestward, from the great Iliamna Lake, continued by the Aleutian Islands, a chain of half-submerged mountains (about 150 in number) which reaches out almost to the Siberian coast, and separates the Pacific from Bering Sea. All these islands are lofty, some peaks rising to 8000 feet, and including several occasionally active volcanoes; and all are treeless, but clothed with grass, herbage, and some shrubs. The large, mountainous and forested Kadiak Island, off the eastern shore of the peninsula, may be included in this division.
(3) The Kuskokwim District.—The triangular territory drained by the Kuskokwim River and its branches forms a large area likely to be made serviceable in future, in spite of the fact that the great river itself is so obstructed at its delta and so shallow as not to admit of entrance and navigation by large boats. The climate is endurable in winter, and in summer admits of hay culture and gardening along the lower river, where the country is open, while the eastern part of the district lies among mineral-bearing mountains. A comparatively low watershed separates it from the Lower Yukon.
(4) Yukon Valley and Arctic Alaska.—The northern district embraces all of Alaska from the course of the Yukon northward. Along the Canadian boundary it is mountainous, the Tananá coming in from the southeast and the Porcupine from the northeast, both draining rough, elevated regions. The river is much impeded by shallows and islands through the middle part of its course, and broadens into an extensive delta, with outer bars, at its mouth, so that it can be navigated only by flat-bottomed steamboats of light draught, and only from mid-June to mid-September. Northward of the river the country is for the most part an almost treeless plain, swampy, descending gradually to the coast, where the more northern part is a broad area of marshy waste, or tundra, similar to that of Siberia. The coast region north of the mouth of the river, however, is mountainous and deeply indented by Norton Sound, in which lies the island of St. Michael, near the south shore. North of Norton Sound a mountainous peninsula stretches westward to Bering Strait, terminating in Cape Prince of Wales, only 48 miles from the easternmost point (East Cape) of Kamtchatka. Northward of this peninsula is Kotzebue Sound, opening into the Arctic Ocean, and receiving such large rivers as the Selawik and Noatak, while the Kowak and Colville descend from the unknown interior to the Arctic Ocean, the latter far to the eastward. The northernmost point of this coast is Point Barrow, where the Government maintains intermittently a weather observation station and a relief house for whalers. Out in the middle of Bering Sea is the large island of St. Lawrence, the Diomed Islands lie in the throat of Bering Sea, and the Pribylov or Seal Islands form a small, desolate group about 250 miles north of Oonalashka. Owing to its irregular contour, the coast line of Alaska measures about 8000 miles, exceeding the entire coast line of the United States on the Atlantic Ocean; an idea of its extent can be best conveyed by quoting the statement of Professor Guyot: that the island of Attoo is as far west of San Francisco as the coast of Maine is east of that city.
Climate and Soil. Alaska varies in climate and soil according to the divisions above noted, and according to altitude and nearness to or remoteness from the sea. The climate of the south coast region, however, is so modified by the shielding mountains and the presence of the ocean (where the Japan current flows along the coast from the eastward) that this part of Alaska may be called temperate, and its climate and productions, as far north as Sitka, at least, differ little from those of British Columbia. The isotherm of 40° mean annual temperature, which passes through the lower St. Lawrence Valley on the eastern side of the continent, curves northward west of the Rocky Mountains, and is the mean annual isotherm of the southern Alaskan coast region; but the climate of this region exhibits less extremes between winter and summer temperature than does that of the St. Lawrence Valley, and is far more rainy, as must necessarily be the case where the prevailing winds come off the ocean and almost immediately strike against snowy mountains which condense and precipitate their moisture almost incessantly. Days without rain are rare, and fogs prevail. These conditions so modify the temperature of the coast that the mercury rarely descends below zero or rises above 80° F. Much the same temperature exists over Kadiak Island and the Aleutian chain, but with greater cold and more wind and snow in winter. Cook's Inlet has the agreeable peculiarity of being almost free of the fogs so prevalent elsewhere. North of the mountains, where the country is barricaded against the tempering influence of the Pacific and exposed to the northern winds, lower temperature and drier conditions prevail.
Data for the Kuskokwim division are scanty, but indicate that the average for midwinter approaches zero and for midsummer about 50°. In the lower Yukon Valley semi-arctic conditions prevail, a brief, warm summer, averaging about 60° F. for July, being followed by a long winter of excessive cold, the average temperature from December to March at Nulato being about 16° below zero, with frequent “spells” of -40° to -50° F. It is colder further up the river, where navigation is limited to three months. (See Yukon.) At St. Michael's Island and on the neighboring coast (Nome) of Norton Sound, the temperature is more moderate than in the interior, the winter being less protracted and severe. Along the northern coast the climate is truly arctic, the annual mean at Point Barrow being about 25° F. The northern interior, wherever level, is swampy, and the soil is permanently frozen a yard or so below the surface. In the southerly half of Alaska, at least, the soil is fertile enough, so far as its qualities go.
Flora. All Alaska north of the Yukon and west of the mountains along the Porcupine River, near the Canadian boundary, is swampy tundra, bearing only small bushes and some dwarf willows and spruce. The hills of the northwestern coast are barren, and those of the Kuskokwim Valley only lightly wooded, except toward its
