OF THE LARGE AMERICAN MAMMALS 215 



between the Rocky Mountain continental divide and the 

 waters of the Pacific. Over the southern end, of this great 

 wilderness ranges the black mountain sheep, and throughout 

 the remainder, with many sheepless intervals, is scattered 

 the white mountain sheep. 



Owing to the immensity of this wilderness, the well-nigh 

 total lack of railroads and also of navigable rivers, excepting 

 the Yukon, it will not be thoroughly "opened up" for a quarter 

 of a century. The few resolute and pneumonia-proof sports- 

 men who can wade into the country, pulling boats through 

 icy-cold mountain streams, are not going to devastate those 

 mountains of their herds of big game. The few head of 

 game which sportsmen can and will take out of the great 

 northwestern wilderness during the next twenty-five years 

 will hardly be missed from the grand total, even though a 

 few easily accessible localities are shot out. It is the deadly 

 resident trappers, hunters and prospectors who must be 

 feared! It takes from twenty -two to thirty-two mountain 

 sheep to feed two Alaska or Yukon miners through one winter; 

 and this according to their own figures. 



And who can control the wilderness prospectors, miners, 

 hunters and trappers? Can any wilderness government on 

 earth make it possible? Therefore, in time, even the great 

 wilderness will be denuded of big game. This is absolutely 

 fixed and certain; for within much less than another century 

 every square rod of it will have been gone over by prospectors, 

 lumbermen, trappers and skin-hunters, and raked again and 

 again with fine-toothed combs. A railway line to Dawson, 

 the Copper River and Cook Inlet is to-day merely the next 



