CHAPTER IV. 



THE ALPINE ZONE OF MOUNT ST. ELIAS. 



The Hot Spring Oasis and the Humming-bird near Sitka. The Value and 

 Pleasure of Warm Springs in Alaska. The Old "Redoubt ' or Russian 

 Jail. The Tread well Mine. Futility of Predicting what may, or what 

 will not Happen in Mining Discovery. Coal of Alaska not fit for Steam- 

 ing Purposes. Salmon Canneries. The Great "Whaling Ground" of 

 Fairweather. Superb and Lofty Peaks seen at Sea One Hundred and 

 Thirty-five Miles Distant. Mount Fairweather so named as the Whale- 

 men's Barometer. The Storm here in 1741 which Separated Bering and 

 his Lieutenant. The Grandeur of Mount St. Elias, Nineteen Thousand 

 Five Hundred Feet. A Tempestuous and Forbidding Coast to the Mariner. 

 The Brawling Copper River. Mount Wrangel, Twenty Thousand Feet, 

 the Loftiest Peak on the North American Continent. In the Forks of 

 this Stream. Exaggerated Fables of the Number and Ferocity of the 

 Natives. Frigid, Gloomy Grandeur of the Scenery in Prince William 

 Sound. The First Vessel ever built by White Men on the Northwest 

 Coast, Constructed here in 1794. The Brig Phoenix, One Hundred and 

 Eighty Tons, No Paint or Tar. Covered with a Coat of Spruce-Gum, 

 Ochre, and Whale-oil, Wrecked in 1799 with Twenty Priests and Dea- 

 cons of the Greek Church on Board. Every Soul Lost. Love of the 

 Natives for their Rugged, Storm-beaten Homes. 



A BRONZED humming-bird* lies upon the author's table, that once 

 hovered and darted over the waters of Sitka Sound. Its torn and 

 rudely stuffed skin was given to him at Fort Simpson with the re- 

 mark that it came from the hot springs just below New Archangel ; 

 and that nowhere else in all of a vast wilderness, outside of the 

 immediate vicinity of these springs, ever did or could a humming- 

 bird be found. Should, therefore, a visitor to this Alaskan solitude 

 chance to travel within it during the months of April and May, if 



* Sdasphorw rufusii is common in California, Oregon, and parts of 

 Washington Territory, and Southern British Columbia never found north of 

 Victoria on the coast, except as above stated : it winters in Central America. 



