[6] The superficial area of Alaska is 512,000 square miles; or, in round numbers, just one sixth of the entire extent of the United States and Territories. Population in 1880: Whites, 430; Creole, 1,756; Eskimo, 17,617; Aleut, 2,145; Athabascan, 3,927; Thlinket, 6,763—total, 33,426. [7] When the Cassiar mines in British Columbia were prosperous, Wrangel was a very busy little transfer-station—the busiest spot in Alaska; then between four and five thousand miners passed through every spring and fall as they went up to and came down from the diggings on the Stickeen tributaries above; they left a goodly share, if not most, of their earnings among the store and saloon keepers of Wrangel. The fort is now deserted—the town nearly so; the whole place is rapidly reverting to the Siwashes. Government buildings erected here by the U. S. military authorities, which cost the public treasury $150,000, were sold in 1877, when the troops were withdrawn, for a few hundreds. The main street is choked with decaying logs and stumps. A recent visitor declares, upon looking at the condition of this place in the summer of 1883: “Fort Wrangel is a fit introduction to Alaska. It is most weird and wild of aspect. It is the key-note to the sublime and lonely scenery of the north. It is situated at the foot of conical hills, at the head of a gloomy harbor, filled with gloomy islands. Frowning cliffs, beetling crags, stretch away on all sides surrounding it. Lofty promontories guard it, backed by range after range of sharp, volcanic peaks, which in turn are lost against lines of snowy mountains. It is the home of storms. You see that in the broken pines on the cliff-sides, in the fine wave-swept rocks, in the lowering mountains. There is not a bright touch in it—not in its straggling lines of native huts, each with a demon-like totem beside it, nor in the fort, for that is dilapidated and fast sinking into decay.” [8] 14,708 feet. [9] 13,400 feet. [10] I am aware that geologists do not all subscribe to this view, which was the doctrine of Agassiz. [11] The chief signal officer of the U. S. Army has had a number of meteorological observers stationed at half a dozen different posts in Alaska, and has had this service fully organized up there during the last ten years; the inquirer can easily gain access to a large amount of published data touching this subject. The mean temperature of the year will run throughout the months in the Sitkan region about as follows—an average, for the time, of 44° 7’ Fah. January, 29° 2’ February, 36° 4’ March, 37° 8’ April, 44° 7’ May, 45° 5’ June, 55° 3’ July, 55° 6’ August, 56° 4’ September, 51° 9’ October, 49° 2’ November, 36° 6’ December, 30° 2’ [12] Zarenbo Island—it blocks the northern end of Clarence Strait, and affords many varied vistas of rare scenic beauty.