The Mississippi of Alaska: the Yukon River, and its Thorough Exploration.—Its vast Deltoid Mouth.—Cannot be Entered by Sea-going Vessels. Its Valley, and its Tributaries.—Dividing Line between the Eskimo and the Indian on its Banks.—The Trader’s Steamer; its Whistle in this Lone Waste of the Yukon.—Michaelovsky, the Trading Centre for this Extensive Circumpolar Area.—The Characteristic Beauties of an Arctic Landscape in Summer.—Thunder-storms on the Upper Yukon; never Experienced on the Coast and at its Mouth.—Gorgeous Arches of Auroral Light; Beautiful Spectacular Fires in the Heavens.—Unhappy Climate. Saint Michael’s to the Northward.—Zagoskin, the Intrepid Young Russian Explorer, 1842.—Snow Blizzards.—Golovin Bay; our People Prospecting there for Lead and Silver.—Drift-wood from the Yukon Strews the Beaches of Bering Sea.—Ookivok, and its Cliff-cave Houses.—Hardy Walrus-hunters. —Grantley Harbor; a Reminder of a Costly American Enterprise and its Failure.—Cape Prince of Wales—facing Asia, thirty-six miles away.—Simeon Deschnev, the first White Man to see Alaska, 1648. —His Bold Journey.—The Diomede Islands; Stepping-stones between Asia and America in Bering Straits. —Kotzebue Sound; the Rendezvous for Arctic Traders; the Last Northern Station Visited by Salmon. Interesting Features of the Place. CHAPTER XIV. MORSE AND MAHLEMOÖT pp. 436-465 The Monotonous Desolation of the Alaskan Arctic Coast.—Dreary Expanse of Low Moorlands.—Diversified by Saddle-backed Hills of Gray and Bronze Tints.—The Coal of Cape Beaufort in the Arctic.—A Narrow Vein. Pure Carboniferous Formation.—Doubtful if these Alaskan “Black Diamonds” can be Successfully Used.—Icy Cape, a Sand- and Gravel-spit.—Remarkable Land-locked Lagoons on the Beach.—The Arctic Innuits.—Point Barrow, Our Extreme Northern Land, a Low Gravel-spit.—The Buttercup and the Dandelion Bloom here, however, as at Home.—Back to Bering Sea.—The Interesting Island and Natives of St. Lawrence.—The Sea-horse.—Its Uncouth Form and Clumsy Life.—Its Huge Bulk and Impotency on Land.—Lives entirely by Clam-digging.—Bank Flavor of its Flesh.—The Walrus is to the Innuit just as the Cocoa-palm is to the South Sea Islander.—Hunting the Morse.—The Jagged, Straggling Island of St. Matthew.—The Polar Bears’ Carnival.—Hundreds of them here.—Their Fear of Man.—“Over the Hills and Far Away,” whenever Approached.—Completion of the Alaskan Circuit. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. _FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS._ SITKA SOUND, _Frontispiece_. SEA-COW, _Facing Page_ 4 GRAND GLACIER, ICY BAY, ” 19 KOOTZNAHOO INLET, ” 23 GLIMPSE OF SITKA, ” 32