>urington.] ROADS AND ROAD BUILDING IN ALASKA. 227 
strikingly low. For example, a hundred feet of 8-inch 16-gage 
rydraulic riveted steel pipe costs in Fairbanks $175. On Fairbanks 
Jreek, 20 miles away, the same 100 feet of pipe, with freight at 20 
?ents per pound, costs, if transported in summer, $301, representing a 
:reight charge of $126. In the Klondike, where the topography is 
learly the same, the same pipe would be landed on a claim 20 miles 
Tom Dawson for a freight charge of $9.45. 
Anything worse than the present condition of the trails in the 
nterior of Alaska is difficult to conceive. Men ignorant of the use of 
i map and compass are frequently lost in the vast maze of rolling 
nountains and undergo hardship and starvation. It is a curious fact, 
lependent on the peculiar frozen conditions, that the great river flats, 
vhere the present trails are at their worst, are the very places where 
^agon roads of the Dawson type can be most easily maintained. As 
:or the hill country, the roads can, in many cases, be led almost contin- 
lously for distances of from 5 to 20 miles along the crests of gently 
•oiling divides. 
PI. XL, B, shows one of the important producing creeks of central 
llaska, where a road is badly needed, and PI. XLI, A, illustrates the 
present mode of transportation in that district. 
SEWARD PENINSULA PROVINCE. 
In the central and western portions of Seward Peninsula, namely, 
he Nome, Solomon, Council, Topkok, Kougarok, Teller, and York 
listricts, any projects of installation of roads must take into account 
;he entire absence of native timber. The region so defined is the one 
vhich has attained importance as a gold-producing area, while the 
eastern portion of the province, where scant growth of spruce does 
>ccur, is not at present productive. PI. XLII illustrates typical 
Reward Peninsula topography. 
Owing to these conditions wagon-road construction which employs 
he use of timber in any form will be expensive, and as seen b} r the 
able given previously in this paper, the cost of building the narrow- 
rage railways which have done excellent service in Seward Penin- 
sula is $6,000 per mile, exclusive of rolling stock, while a wagon road 
)f the Dawson type will rarely fall below $1,000 per mile. The rates 
or hauling on these railways may be reckoned at $1 per ton per mile, 
n summer, wagons with broad tires now haul freight over roads which 
lave, as it were, made themselves, at rates of $1.50 to $3 per ton per 
uile, varying according to the nature of the country traversed. 
It is questionable whether wagon roads, extensively built and 
,iming at permanency, will ever be constructed in Seward Peninsula 
o supply the needs of the gold-mining communities. The Nome 
