FLORA. All Alaska north of the Yukon and west of the mountains along the Porcupine River, near the Canadian boundary, is swampy tundra, bearing only small bushes and some dwarf wil lows and spruce. The hills of the northwestern coast are barren. and those of the Kuskokwim Valley only lightly wooded, except toward its head, where spruce forests clothe the bases of the mountains, separated by grassy valleys, exhibit ing a wide diversity of tall flowering herbage and low shrubs. The Aleutian Islands are en tirely without trees, except a few scrub willows: hut some have great numbers of bushes allied to the cranberry and whortleberry. Under the rooist and temperate influences heretofore men tioned, the coastal strip, however, from Kadiak down to British Columbia, is clothed with a forest w-hieh becomes of great size, variety, and economic value from Cross Sound southward. Deciduous (hard-wood) trees are white birches, poplars (often very large), alders and similar kinds, usually of small size and importance; but coniferous trees form extensive forests over all the islands and around the bases of the moun tains up to the edge of the ice or snow, which lies permanently at en average elevation of about 2000 feet. The most widely distributed
species is the Sitka or Alaskan spruce (.t/tics sitcbcnsis), which is scattered over the whole territory as far north as the Arctic Circle, but reaches a useful size only on the shores of Prince William Sound and on the islands of the Alex ander Archipelago. (See SrnIteE.) It is the tree which serves most of the wants of the natives for house-building, tire-wood, torches, and general purposes, and is the principal resource for lumber for mining and other rough purposes on the coast and in the interior: but owing to its slow growth the timber is knotty and not adapted to the finer uses. The hemlock (Abies mertenRiane) and the balsam fir may exceed the Sitka spruce. but are uncommon and of little service, except that the bark of the former is useful for tanning hides. The yellow cedar (Cuprcs.sus Vtitkaensis), however, is very valu able. It has been nearly exterminated on Bar auov Island, hut remains numerous and of large size on several islands southward; it is from this that the great dug-out boats of the lIaida Indians are made. Its wood is elea•-grained and very durable.