172 National Geographic Magazine. 
fellow-members of the Geographic Society as they were novel 
and instructive to myself. 
Before beginning my narrative, however, let me give you an 
idea of the extent of the shore-line of the territory or semi- 
colonial province along which so much of our cruise was made. 
_ Alaska has an area of about 580,000 square miles, consisting of 
a large mainland with a coast-line 6,650 miles in length, and also 
of more than 1,100 islands, with a coast-line of 2,950 miles, the 
entire coast-line being 9,600 miles. The coast-line of the rest of 
the United States, including islands, is only 6,580 miles, thus 
making the coast-line of Alaska 3,020 miles more than the coast- 
line of all of the rest of the United States. 
Of this great country the part known best and visited annually 
by tourists is that insignificant portion of southeastern Alaska 
which consists of the Alexander archipelago and its neighboring 
main coast-line, differing in its scenery, topography, climate, and 
native inhabitants, from the greater part of this vast territory. 
It is fortunate, however, that this corner of Alaska is so easily 
and comfortably reached by the summer traveler, as, with the 
exception of the coast-line and inlets between Sitka and Kodiak, 
which includes the Fairweather ground and the St. Elias range 
of moufftains, this portion contains perhaps the finest and most 
striking scenery and the largest and grandest glaciers in the ter- 
ritory, if not in all North and South America. 
The U.S. 8. Thetis was assigned in 1889 to the duty of look- 
ing out for the commercial and whaling interests of the United 
States in Bering sea and the Arctic ocean, to which was subse- 
quently added the duty of assisting in the establishment and 
erection of a house of refuge in the vicinity of Poimt Barrow, 
the most northerly point of our Arctic possessions. The duty 
assigned to the Thetis did not include the protection of the seal- 
ing interests of the United States, nor of those interests enjoyed 
by the Alaska Commercial Company as the regular lessees from 
the United States of the Pribyloff group of islands. This was 
confided to the Revenue Marine Service of the Treasury Depart- . 
ment. 
The Thetis left San Francisco on the 20th of April, 1889, and 
after a detention of a month at Tacoma, upon the placid waters 
of Puget sound, awaiting supplementary orders, reached Port 
Tongass, in extreme southeastern Alaska, on the 31st of May, and 
Sitka, the territorial capitol, upon the 2d of June. After a stay 
