Alaska is a very large country, exceeding one-sixth the area of the United States, and was bought from Russia by Secretary Seward in 1867 for $7,200,000, a price then deemed extravagant, but the purchase has been enormously profitable. The name is derived from the Indian _Al-ay-ek-sha_, meaning the "Great land." Besides its large extent of main land, it includes some fifteen thousand islands, and its enormous river, the Yukon, flowing into the Behring Sea, has a delta sixty miles wide at its mouth, is three thousand miles long, and is navigable for almost two thousand miles. Although Alaska's productiveness seems just beginning to be realized, yet it has yielded in gold and furs, fish and other products, since the purchase, over $150,000,000. [Illustration: _Sitka, Alaska, from the Sea_] Within Alaska, the route of exploration continues through Clarence Strait to the Alexander Archipelago, comprising several thousand islands, many of which are mountainous, and about eleven hundred of the larger ones have been charted. Here is Fort Wrangell, seven hundred miles from Victoria, on one of the islands, a little settlement named after Baron Wrangell, the Russian Governor of Alaska in 1834. Upon landing, the visitors see the Indians and their chief curiosity, the "totem poles," erected in front of their houses, and carved with rude figures emblematic of the owner and his ancestors. These poles are twenty to sixty feet in height, and two to five feet in diameter. The natives are divided into clans, of which the Whale, the Eagle, the Wolf and the Raven are the chief representatives and are said to have been the progenitors. These are also carved on the poles and show the intermarriages of ancestors, the leading families having the most elaborate poles. Beyond Fort Wrangell are Soukhoi Channel and Frederick Sound, leading into Chatham Strait, having on its western side Baranoff Island, on the outer edge of which is Sitka Sound. Here is Sitka, the capital of Alaska, in a well-protected bay dotted with pleasant islands in front and having snow-covered mountains for a high background. Alexander Baranoff founded the town in 1804, the first Russian Governor of Alaska, and there are now about twelve hundred inhabitants, mostly Indians. The old wooden Baranoff Castle, which was the residence of the Russian Governors, is on a hill near the landing-place. The main street leads past the Greek Church, surmounted with its bulbous spire, having six sweet-toned bells brought from Moscow, and adjoining it are various old-time log houses built by the early Russians. The church is still maintained by the Russian Government. The visitors buy curiosities and invest their small change in the Indians who get up monotonous dances or exciting canoe races for their amusement. It is a curious fact that, owing to the _Kuro Siwo_, or Japanese warm current coming across the Pacific, Sitka has a mild and most equable climate, the summer