164 TRAVELS IN THE EIGHTIES. 



goat, half antelope. As we gradually reached higher 

 latitudes night disappeared, the approach of midnight 

 was only indicated by a subdued kind of twilight 

 which permitted one to read, while night and day the 

 steamer continued to wind her way among the islands, 

 some of which are of very remarkable shape. One of 

 the most curious examples of the shape which an 

 island can assume is that one named Kow Island, 

 lying to the west of Fort Wrangel, to which the 

 Coast Survey could find no other comparison where- 

 unto to liken it than that of a heap of entrails strewn 

 and scattered upon the ground, and it is undeniably 

 true. The next place at which the steamer stopped to 

 call was Fort Wrangel, at the mouth of the Stikeen 

 River, which was discharging volumes of cold muddy 

 snow-water into the sea. This place is celebrated for 

 its trees carved by the Indians with their armorial 

 figures of monstrous deformity known as totem-poles. 

 After this we passed Wrangel Straits, where some 

 glaciers are situated, which bad weather prevented 

 our seeing, but in the afternoon it cleared up, and 

 some of the snow-fields and glaciers of Southern 

 Alaska became visible as we passed an arm or fiord 

 named Taku Inlet. We soon reached Harrisburg or 

 Juneau, a mining settlement. Immediately opposite 

 is situated the largest gold mine and stamp-mills in 

 Alaska ; the ore averages from nine to fifty dollars a 

 ton, but the quartz is easily pulverised, and supply 

 said to be inexhaustible. We next threaded a long 

 narrow arm walled in by steep rocks and glaciers, 



