ALASKA. 15 



wbicli were found here in 1825, Avlien the Kussian.s landed f<jr 

 the first time, and the rocks were still warm. 



In this way and recently, g'eolo<^ically speaking, were the 

 Aleutian Islands formed from the Peninsula westward, includ- 

 ing the Prybilov Group and Saint ^Matthew's, their appearance 

 marking the course of a line of least resistance in the earth's 

 crust. 



The Yulon Distrtcf. — In this division may be i)laced all that 

 country above the head of Bristol Bay and north and west of 

 the Peninsular llauge of mountains as they extend far into the 

 interior, reaching to the arctic and far beyond, an immense area 

 of desolate sameness, almost unknown, and likely to be so for 

 an indefinite time, the banks of the Yukon liiver being the 

 only track traversed as yet by white men into the interior. 

 This great range of country may properly be divided into two 

 sections, the hills or timber-lands and the plains or tundra. The 

 former seldom approach the waters of Bering or the Arctic 3ea 

 nearer than fifty or sixty miles, and generally trend some two to 

 three hundred miles back. The general contourof the interior 

 is a vast undulating plain, with high, rounded granitic hills and 

 ridges scattered here and there, on the flanks of which, and by 

 the countless lakes and water-courses, grow in tolerable abun- 

 dance spruce, fir, hemlock, birch, and poplar, with a large number 

 of hardy shrubs indigenous all the world over to these latitudes. 

 The summers short, but warm and pleasant ; the winters long, 

 and bitterly cold and inclement. 



The tundra, however, which fronts the whole coast-line of 

 this, the most extensive section of the Territory, is, indeed, 

 cheerless and repellant at au}' season ; in the summer it is a 

 great flat swale, full of bog-holes, slimy, decayed peat, innumer- 

 able lakes, shallow, stagnant, and from all places swarm mos- 

 quitoes of the most malignant typ:-, while in winter it is a wide 

 snow plain, over which fierce gales of wind, at zero tempera- 

 ture, sweep in constant succession, making travel as painful 

 and dangerous as can be well imagined. In this season all ap- 

 proach to the coast is barred by a great system of shoals and 

 banks, which extend so for out to sea that a vessel drawing 10 

 feet of water will be hard aground, out of sight of laud, oft' the 

 mouth of the Yukon. 



There is a vast area of this district between the head of 

 Cook's Inlet and the Arctic, and far back into the interior, that 

 is entirely unknown, but as traders are extending their'routes 

 in all directions, this interior may in time be explored and noted. 



