482 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Photograph by Ansel F. Hall 



THE GATES TO YOSEMITF, VALLEY, CALIFORNIA, FROM THE SLOPE OF SENTINEL 



DOME, NEAR GLACIER POINT 



Snowshoes are better than skis on such a slope as this, more than four thousand feet 

 above the valley floor. To the right is the flat face of El Capitan. Cathedral Rocks close 

 the view to the left. Far below is the road to the railway terminus at El Portal, ten miles 

 down the valley of the Merced. The dog in the picture is a famous character in the Yosemite, 

 where all other dogs are excluded. He is '"Bob Townsley," the National Park Service lion 

 tracker, and 'as good a ranger as any man in the service." 



into grazing lands, until I came to the 

 snow on the top of the mountain. So 

 that in that small tract of land, driving 

 in an hour's time from the sea to the 

 summit of the mountain, one sees every- 

 thing that can he produced, from the 

 tropics to the Arctic Circle. 



That segment of that island gives a 

 picture of the United States, because we 

 have capacity in this country to prodnce 

 all of those things which man requires, 

 either in the temperate or the semi-trop- 

 ical zones or even in the eternal snows of 

 the north. 



Alaska's new railway 



In Alaska we are bnilding a railroad ; 

 it is almost built ; five hundred miles long, 

 running from the sea straight north to 

 Fairbanks and into the Arctic Circle. 

 That is a government enterprise. The 

 road is as well laid as the Pennsylvania. 

 It has been built, without graft and with- 



out pull, out of government funds for the 

 benefit of that territory, so that it may 

 be opened up. 



The very far end of Alaska is Seward 

 Peninsula. Worthless ? It looks so. Yet 

 a woman came in to see me some time 

 ago carrying a receipt for forty thousand 

 dollars' worth of tin that she had got out 

 of a river bed there. 



THE REINDEER AND THE MUSK-OX 



This side of Seward Peninsula we have 

 the great grazing grounds of the reindeer. 

 Twenty years ago a man conceived the 

 idea that the Alaskan moss would sup- 

 port Siberian reindeer. He brought 1,200 

 animals over ; that herd has multiplied 

 until it is now 165,000. They feed on 

 moss all the year round. Eskimos guard 

 them. 



The other day Stefansson, who made 

 that great swing around North America, 

 and added one hundred thousand square 



