THE MONARCHS OF ALASKA 

 By R. H. Sargent, U. S. Geological Survey 



IF "Seward's Folly" were justified in 

 no other way than by the purchase 

 of this territory as a preserve of 

 scenic grandeur, our far-sighted Secre- 

 tary of State would be wholly exonerated. 



After a visit to southeastern Alaska, 

 one author of note has written : "Com- 

 bine-all that is best in the beauties of the 

 Hudson and the Rhine, of Lakes George 

 and Killarney, of the Yosemite and all 

 of Switzerland, and you have a slight 

 conception of the beauties of this green 

 archipelago." Much of all this grandeur 

 is to be found in Alaska's mountains. 



Because of the comparative inaccessi- 

 bility, except at great cost and much ex- 

 penditure of time, the mountain districts 

 have been visited by only a favored few. 

 But the accounts and descriptions of 

 these, fortified by photographs of the 

 regions, are such as to awaken a keen de- 

 sire in all lovers of nature to see them 

 for themselves. 



The steamers running to Juneau and 

 Skagway traverse a course which is 

 yearly pronounced by hundreds who take 

 this trip as the most scenic upon the 

 globe. For a thousand miles the steamer 

 winds its way through tortuous and nar- 

 row passages, the waters of which are as 

 smooth as a mill pond, while snow- 

 capped peaks, ice fields, waterfalls, and 

 green slopes pass in panoramic view 

 before the eye. 



The Coast Range of British Columbia 

 and southeastern Alaska is an irregular 

 mass of mountains with no definite crest 

 line. These mountains may be consid- 

 ered a general northern extension of the 

 highlands which parallel the Pacific sea- 

 board of the United States. Along the 

 entire coast from Seattle to Skag- 

 way, the sculpturing and general phys- 

 iographic features of these mountains 

 are such as to make them of particular 

 interest. The broad, smooth-sided, ice- 

 carved valleys, which subsequently were 



filled with water, due to the sinking of 

 the entire region, make a very irregular 

 coast-line, marked by numberless fiords, 

 many of which extend far inland. 



An archipelago of numberless islands, 

 the relief of which is nearly equal to that 

 of the mainland, fringes this entire coast- 

 line. The passages between these islands 

 are deep, each being remarkably uniform 

 throughout its entire length. The moun- 

 tains of both the islands and main- 

 land rise, bold and precipitous, from the 

 water's edge to heights of from 5,000 to 

 10,000 feet. 



GLACIAL SCULPTURING 



Many of the side valleys exhibit to 

 a marked degree that physiographic 

 characteristic of glacial sculpturing — the 

 hanging valley. Often is seen, some 

 hundreds of feet above tidewater, the 

 broad, symmetrically carved U-shaped 

 shelf, which, colored by the evergreens, 

 makes a wonderful frame about the pic- 

 ture formed in the background by the 

 cold gray mountains, with their snow- 

 capped peaks, and in the foreground the 

 stream fed by the melting snow and 

 glaciers of the main range, plunging, roar- 

 ing, often cascading down the precipi- 

 tous face of the mountains for hundreds 

 of feet. 



SALMON FISHERIES 



As the steamer glides past the entrance 

 of a fiord, one catches a glimpse of a 

 group of white buildings nestled at the 

 base of the mountains, where the mirror- 

 like waters of the inlet meet the precipir 

 tous evergreen slopes. An exclamation 

 of amazement at the beauty of the pic- 

 ture is well nigh irrepressible. These 

 buildings are simply one group of which 

 there are scores along the southern coast, 

 making one of the greatest of Alaska's 

 industries, the canning of salmon. There 

 are approximately 200,000,000 cans of 

 salmon sent from Alaska each season. 



