Captain J. W. White of the United States revenue marine says: “I have seen coal veins over an area of forty or fifty square miles so thick that it seemed to me to be one vast bed. It is of an excellent steam-producing quality, having a clear white ash. The quantity seemed to be unlimited. This bed lies northwest of Sitka, up Cook’s Inlet which broadens into a sea in some places.” Nature has provided fuel in limitless quantities for this great Territory, both in the form of coal and of wood, each of which is of the most available character, both as regards the quality and the convenience of location. In speaking of the rich and varied prospects of the country, let us not forget to mention the abundance of pure white, statuary marble, which exists here in immense quarries, near the site of which there are numerous safe and commodious harbors, with great depth of water, inviting the commerce of the world. We need not send to Italy for a fine article in this line; the choicest product for statuary purposes is here upon our own soil. While these sheets are going through the press, the fact that a valuable quicksilver mine, which was discovered at Kuskoquin some years ago, now proves to be of high grade and purity, is published to the world at large. If so, this is extremely providential, as there is now a constant demand for mercury in the treatment of the gold-bearing quartz of the numerous mines hereabouts. The studied effort of certain writers to depreciate the value of the Territory of Alaska in nearly every possible respect seems very singular to us, and is altogether too obvious to carry conviction with it. The great amount of gold now being realized every month of the year, the millions of cured salmon and cod annually exported to other sections, together with the rich furs regularly shipped from the Territory, counted by hundreds of thousands, must cause such people a degree of mortification. One of these writers put himself on record by saying not long since that gold did not exist in the Territory in paying quantities. Yet there is a standing offer of sixteen million dollars for the Treadwell gold mine on Douglas Island, while within eight or ten miles of it, at Silver Bow Basin, on the mainland, is another gold mine, as has been shown, owned and worked by a Boston company, nearly as valuable. Referring to this auriferous deposit on Douglas Island, Governor Swineford says, in his official report to the government for the year 1887: “It is without doubt the largest body of gold-bearing quartz ever developed in this or any other country.”