ALASKA, a Territory in the Western Division of the North American Union, comprising the extreme northwestern part of the American continent; bounded by the Arctic and Pacific Oceans, Bering Sea, British Columbia, and the North west Territories of Canada ; gross area, as far as determined, 581,107 square miles; purchased from Russia, in 1867, for $7,200,000; given a territorial dis trict government in 1884; administrative districts 4; pop. (1910) 64,356; (1920) 54,718; seat of government, Juneau.
Topography.—The Territory includes Prince of Wales Island, the Alexander or King George Archipelago, and the Kadiak, Aleutian, Pribiloff, and St. Lawrence Islands. The coast line exceeds that of the entire Atlantic seaboard of the United States, and has several notable indentations, as Prince William's Sound, Cook Inlet, Bristol Bay, and Northern and Kotzebue Sounds. The extreme length of the mainland, from N. to S., is about 1,100 miles; extreme width, 800 miles. Among rivers, the most important are the Yukon, rising in British Columbia, and about 2,000 miles in total length; the Kuskokwim, which empties into Bering Sea ; the Colville, Copper, and Sushitna. Here the Rocky Mountains merge into the Alaskan, culminating in Mount Wran gell, 17,500 feet high. Another range, near the coast, reaches its extreme height in Mount Logan, 19,500 feet (according to Harrington), and Mount Fairweather, 15,50G feet.
Geology.—The Arctic District is tree less with ranges of hills; the Yukon Basin has large areas of forests; the Kuskokwim District resembles the Yukon Basin, but has more mountains; the Aleutian comprises treeless islands; the Kadiak is still but little known; and the Sitka has valuable timber lands. The glacial and volcanic periods still survive; beds of cretaceous and miocene lignites, dikes of plutonic rock, hot and boiling springs, quartz-bearing ledges, and aurif_ erous gravel beds and sands are abun dant.
Mineralogy.—Gold was discovered on the Kenai peninsula in 1848, but was not sought further. In 1880, surface gold was found in the S. E., and systematic mining may be said to have begun then.
Lignite coal, native copper, cinnabar, graphite, iron ore, white marble sulphur, medicinal springs, mica, kaolin, manga nese, asphalt, and petroleum are found in various sections, and many of them in accessible locations and paying quan tities. At present gold mining is the principal mineral industry, and the larg est fields are in the Yukon region, on both sides of the boundary line, and in the Cape Nome district, on Bering Sea, and wholly within the American territory, where gold was first discovered in 1898.
The annual production of gold has fallen off greatly in the last decade. It reached in 1909 a maximum of $29,411, 716, falling to $9,480,952 in 1918. This is caused chiefly by the falling off in the discovery of bonanza mines and the neg lect of the systematic development of the lower-grade ores. The production of cop per has also shown a gradual decrease. The production in 1917 was 88,793,400 pounds, valued at $24,240,598. This fell off in 1918 to 69,224,951 pounds, valued at $17,098,563. The loss was due chiefly to a shortage of labor, and transportation. The production in 1919 was about 44, 800,000 pounds of copper valued at $4500,000. The coal production con tinues to be small, due chiefly to a lack of development. In 1918 it amounted to 75,616 tons, valued at $411,815. Other mineral products are lead, tin, platinum, and petroleum. The resources of the lat ter are indicated to be large and await only development and the building of rail way lines.
Fisheries.—Fish are the most valuable of Alaskan products in value. The total investment in fishing industries in 1910 was $73,750,789. There were employed in the industry nearly 35,000 persons. The total value of fishery products was $69,154,859 in 1918. Over 90 per cent. of the fish taken were salmon. Others were herring, halibut, and whales. The herring industry has greatly increased in recent years through the introduction of the Scotch curing method. Salmon canneries in 1918 shipped about 5,500, 000 cases of 48 pounds each.