Until a few years ago the popular conception of Alaska was a vast country sealed against the efforts of civilisation by impenetrable barriers of snow and ice, presenting such a dismal outlook as to daunt the most intrepid spirits. But to-day quite a different impression prevails. Alaska is considered a coming country, although it rests on either side of the invisible line denoting the Arctic circle. It is a vast mineral storehouse, the lofty mountains containing rich deposits of all the valuable minerals of commerce, while the dales nestling among the peaks have been found to be of wonderful fertility and capable of producing a wealth of agricultural produce. One might regard the possibility of raising wheat and hay in that northern clime as a mere phantasy, but I have seen cereals and hay cut in those valleys which compare very favourably in quality with the similar products grown in the great agricultural belts of the United States and Canada. The fact is that the interior, far from being locked the whole year round in a temperature hovering around, or many degrees below, zero, has extremes of heat and cold. In the winter the snow envelops the ground to a depth of several feet, and the mercury descends to 40 or 50 degrees below zero, but in the summer the thermometer registers temperatures of 80 and 90 degrees. While the winter grips the country for nearly two-thirds of the year, the summer barely lasts 100 days. But what a summer it is! The sun shines from a cloudless sky the whole time, and for some twenty hours throughout the day. Consequently it is possible to sow and to harvest the crops within 80 days. Along the coast extremely cold weather scarcely ever is experienced. The conditions, in fact, are very similar to those prevailing in Scandinavia. The coast-line of the latter country is bathed by the warm waters of the Gulf Stream: the coast-line of Alaska is swept by the warm breezes of the Japanese chinook wind blowing off the Pacific. Yet popular fallacy resulted in the country being regarded as a closed book, and the possibility of a railway ever securing sufficient traffic to justify its existence was ridiculed to scorn twenty years ago. But the past two decades have witnessed strange developments. The railway engineer has penetrated the country, and to-day there is a scene of great activity to connect the remarkable discoveries of metals among the mountains with convenient points of shipment along the coast.