Strait into Siberia, to connect with the Russian telegraph lines 
extending east from St. Petersburg to the mouth of the Amoor, 
a distance of six thousand miles, is now an interesting item of 
history. The expedition, it will be remembered, was abandoned, 
after years of toil and an outlay of three million dollars, on learn¬ 
ing of the completion and success of the Atlantic Cable, but not 
before it had reached Sitka (?), Alaska, a distance overland of 
about sixteen hundred miles. The liberal manner in which this 
expedition was conducted by the Telegraph Company, whose in¬ 
telligent directors appreciated the advantages to be gained through 
a better knowledge of the Territory, enabled the scientist of the 
expedition, and those associated with him, to prosecute an ex¬ 
ploration of scientific value to the country, as well as practical 
advantage to the Company. 
An idea of the magnitude of this extreme northwestern and 
isolated Territory can only be obtained by comparing its area with 
other and better known countries, when we will find that it con¬ 
tains as many square miles as England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, 
France, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland and Belgium combined, 
and, in our own country, is as large as the united areas of our 
five largest states, viz : New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Califor¬ 
nia and Texas. It contains over sixty known volcanic peaks, 
three of the largest mountains in North America (Mount St. Elias, 
nineteen thousand feet, being the loftiest), a sea-coast covered in 
part with forests of choice timber, thousands of islands, good 
harbors on the sea-coast, still better in its numerous and extensive 
channels, sounds and bays, and a river, the Yukon, which now 
takes rank with the four largest in the world, “ equalling the Plata, 
and surpassed only by the Amazon and the Mississippi.” This 
great river, flowing through the interior and finally reaching 
Behring Strait, is estimated to be two thousand miles long, and 
with its tributary, the Pelly River, nearly three thousand. It is 
twenty miles wide as you approach its mouth, seventy at its mouth, 
and is now known to be navigable for river steamers, eighteen hun¬ 
dred miles. Of the five hundred and eighty thousand square 
miles in the Territory, more than one half, or about three hun¬ 
dred thousand square miles, are thought capable of cultivation. 
It is then difficult to believe that Alaska, with this vast extent of 
