122 THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 



" Within its interior the Rocky Mountains attain their greatest 

 altitude north of Colorado, Mt. St. Elias, near its southern boun- 

 dary, towering to the height of 17,000 feet. The mountain regions 

 are distinguished by immense forests of pine, fir, cedar and hem- 

 lock, sometimes extending in an unbroken growth for many miles 

 upon the lower portions of the range, and broad low-lying basins, 

 (ancient lake beds), shadowed by naked, rocky cones and snow- 

 clad peaks. The climate of Alaska is not so intemperate as its 

 northerly situation would indicate, the Kurho-Siva or Japanese 

 current, an ocean stratum of heated waters, flowing from the South 

 Pacific, exerting upon it a climatic influence, analogous to that of 

 the Gulf Stream upon the British Isles. Moist, warm winds blow 

 across the Alaskan sea-coast regions, and the Aleutian Islands, 

 situated near, in the Behring Strait, lending to them a delightful 

 summer climate, and rendering them fruitful in the extreme. The 

 fiftieth isothermal, which leaves the eastern coast of Asia near 

 Pekin, strikes the continent of North America near the 50th paral- 

 lel of north latitude, then trending rapidly to the south, passes 

 near the region of the great lakes, and leaves the eastern coast of 

 the continent, near the city of New York, 



" Thus we find the climate of the lower regions of Alaska very 

 similar to that of Wisconsin, Michigan, and the New England 

 States. The records of the Signal Office established at Sitka for 

 five years, show the mean temperature of the year to be the same 

 in Alaska as in Minnesota and Wisconsin, and the productive 

 power of the soil is certainly equal to that of any portion of the 

 northeastern part of the United States." 



That this is no picture of fancy, we have occasion to know as a 

 few hours further sail of the steamer which, a year ago, bore us 

 to Victoria the capital of British Columbia, situated on Van 

 Couver's Island and Ivinpf in the same latitude as northern New 



