tion of Alaska no portion of the world can be compared with it for the abundance and value of this important variety of fish. The view of the bay is very fine, and there are many very pretty places within easy reach. A large and excellent hotel faces the ocean and there are various other houses at which visitors are well entertained.

The tourist who desires to go still farther can make a pleasant trip of nearly 150 miles from Astoria to Tacoma, located on the famous Puget Sound. Thirty-eight miles from Portland, by the Northern Pacific Railroad, at Hunter's Point, the train is ferried across the Columbia River by a boat built for this road, capable of taking thirty cars at a trip, and said to be the finest boat of the kind ever built. The adjacent country is pleasant and the mountain scenery is magnificent. The Cascade Range rises in blue and white tints and in beautiful form, and for a long distance Mount Hood, with its snowy crown, though now far away, is in full view. This usually attracts a large share of the tourists' attention. The beauty of the mountain itself, though an excellent one, is not the only reason for this close observation. Another cause is found in the fact that when viewed from a distant point, under varying atmospheric conditions, the appearance is widely different from that presented when the observer is in its immediate vicinity. The traveller who has an eye to natural beauty is fairly entranced by the "changing splendors which this glorious peak presents. Other great mountains also come in view as the journey is continued.

When the traveller reaches a point within about forty miles of its base the lofty snow-crowned Tacoma comes into view for a brief period through an opening in the dense forest which during quite a portion of the way inter venes. A little farther on the traveller beholds the great inland sea known as Puget Sound, and at Tacoma, located at the head of Commencement Bay, he will find sailing craft of various descriptions, including large ocean vessels. This is the western terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Here are manufactories and fisheries, and evidences of commercial activity and prosperity appear on every hand. The tourist will find much to interest him, good accommodations, bracing air and, except in winter, when it is very moist as well as mild, a fine climate.

From this point the tourist should make a visit to Mount Tacoma, which is the loftiest and the most beautiful peak in the vicinity. Recent measurements have shown its summit to be 14,444 feet above the sea. This is more than 650 feet higher than Mount Adams, and is the same height as Mount

Shasta in California.

Its base is said to be forty miles in circumference. An elevation of about 11,000 feet may be reached on the northern side with comparative ease, but climbing to the summit is an almost impossible feat which up to 1885 only two men were known to have accomplished. Of the fifteen. glaciers which flow from this mountain three are within easy reach and are said to be more magnificent than the famous glaciers of Switzerland. If the tourist wishes to loiter on the way he will find during the last half of the route, which is traversed on horseback, frequent camps in which he will be well entertained, and in the vicinity of which he will find excellent fishing and hunting.

Returning to Tacoma the tourist will probably feel the need of rest for a day or two from his mountain trip. He will then determine whether to take a homeward course or push on to our great Territory of Alaska at the extreme northwestern portion of the continent. If the former course is chosen he will carry with him the memory of numberless magnificent scenes. If the latter is followed, he can be sure that new beauties and glories await him in the distant land toward which he sails.

ALASKA.

O a great extent Alaska is an unknown land. Only a small portion

of its vast territory has been carefully explored, and with the exception of some circumscribed regions we have but meagre accounts of its character and resources. But enough has been done in the way of travel and description to assure us that it is a land of wonders, and that it presents to the visitor unnumbered scenes of picturesque beauty and grandeur.

Lying away in the north-western portion of the continent and covering an area of 577,390 square miles, an area more than ten times as large as that of the great State of Illinois and larger than the combined area of Great Britain, France, and Germany, it is, indeed, as its name signifies, “a large country." Its length, from extreme points of east to west, is 2,200 miles; from north to south it measures 1,400 miles; and, owing to its extremely irregular form, its shore line exceeds 8,000 miles. If the adjacent islands are included in the measurement we find a coast line of more than 25,000 miles. Though far away from our great centres of civilization, the country is easily

reached by either of the Pacific Railroads to the Pacific coast and thence by large and elegant steamers. All along the western portion of the continent the traveller is surrounded by natural wonders. The trip by steamer, covering a distance of some 2,000 miles, is hardly less astonishing and delightful. Keeping near the shore the wave-motion of the open sea is entirely avoided, the climate is mild, and the magnificent scenery of the coast is in full and constant view.

Arriving at Alaska we find the highest mountains in North America, one of them, Mount Saint Elias, of the Coast Range, reaching a height of about 19,500 feet. Besides this great range there are the Rocky Mountains, and the Alaskan Range, each of which has many towering peaks. The country also contains sixty-one volcanoes, ten of which are active. Mount Edgecumbe, an extinct volcano, has a crater nearly 400 feet deep and 2,000 feet across the top. Among these mountain ranges we also find some of the greatest glaciers in the world. One of these, extending from Mount Fairweather to the sea, a distance of fifty miles, is eight miles wide and breaks in a massive wall of ice 300 feet high. Another, above Fort Wrangel, is forty miles long, four or five miles wide, and about 1,000 feet deep, while only a little distance from this vast mass of moving ice, boiling springs are constantly active. In quite a large section of the country hot mineral springs are numerous, and it is neither impossible nor improbable that at no very remote period this distant region wil! become a noted resort for invalids. Some of these springs are of immense size and strongly impregnated with mineral substances.

The rivers of Alaska are as wonderful in their way as the mountains or any other of the natural phenomena. The largest is the Yukon, which in point of size is the fifth river of North America and the fourth of the United States, draining an extensive area and from its various outlets discharging an immense quantity of water. It has its source in a very small lake, flows through five other lakes, and by a remarkably circuitous course reaches the Behring Sea. The whole course of the river is about 2,044 miles, about 783 of which are in British America. Its waters are discharged from five or more mouths, the two outer ones being not less than sixty miles apart. So great is the volume of water from one of these mouths that for a distance of ten miles after it reaches the sea, the water is still fresh. A vast quantity of sedi ment is carried down the river by its strong and rapid flow and deposited far out in the sea. Some of the shoals thus formed are more than sixty miles