ALASKA. 33 
be embodied as quickly as possible in accurate maps and practical 
reports. The first hasty reconnaissances were so planned as to cover 
the areas of greatest economic importance and to form a framework 
about which more detailed studies could be grouped. 
GEOGRAPHY OF ALASKA. 
GENERAL FEATURES. 
Alaska was purchased from Russia in 1867 for 87,200,000, but for 
thirty years it remained practically forgotten. The events of 1898 
revived public interest in the Territory, but general knowledge of it is 
still very limited. The relation of Alaska to the United States had long 
been overlooked; it had been relegated to the uninhabitable polar 
regions, because no comparison of its climatic features with those of 
countries in approximately the same latitude had been presented. On 
looking at a map or globe of the world it is seen that Scandinavia and 
Alaska are about neck and neck in reaching toward the pole, but that 
Alaska has the greater southern extension and is nearly twice ;is large 
as Scandinavia. The possibilities of Scandinavia are already under- 
stood; the development of Alaska has just commenced. 
The southeastern boundary of Alaska is within two days' distance by 
steamer from Seattle. From the far western extremity can be plainly 
seen the Diomede Islands, between which runs the boundary between 
the United States and Russia. Beyond them, visible at a distance of 
60 miles from Alaska, looms a portion of the Siberian coast. 
The area of Alaska is over 590,000 square miles — about one-fifth that 
of the United States, and two-thirds that of the region included in the 
Louisiana Purchase. The shape is irregular; it consists of a large, 
compact body of land with a projection from each of the loAver cor- 
ners, one toward the southeast, called the Panhandle, and one toward 
the southwest, called the Alaska Peninsula. This peninsula and the 
Aleutian Islands extend our territory far toward Asia, reaching out to 
meet the Commander Islands, a somewhat similar extension eastward 
from the peninsula of Kamchatka. The Panhandle and the Alaska 
Peninsula exhibit unusual irregularity of form, include many associ- 
ated islands separated from one another and the mainland by narrow 
waterways, and, as a whole, present a striking contrast to the main 
portion. 
The boundary line varies greatly in character. The main eastern 
boundary is a straight line from Mount St. Elias to the Arctic coast, 
along the one hundred and forty-first meridian. The boundary along 
the northeastern side of the Panhandle, which has just been fixed by 
international agreement, follows an irregular course among the moun- 
tains of the Coast Range. The waters of Portland Canal and Dixon 
Entrance terminate it to the south. The southeastern or Pacific edge 
Bull. 227—04 3 
