"HISTO'.UCUL ALASKA" (Coat'd)
Article 2:
Fron tho coast of Kamchatka to thr far-flung group of
island which ws know to-day as tho Alsatians tho distance is vory
short* Hero, to, the tfjrian pooplos sailed thoir Kyaks for thr
unkn own eastern islands*/. .-Pushing -along the chain of rcky islets they
they arrived at last on tho Mainland* As in all nitrations, cone
fhl^r out hhr~ and tii^ro and s ttl'. thr land,while the. bolder spir
its, seeking always for that- wxidrful land of riches that all peop
les seen to S'' k, pushed on and n until thoy reached as far south a
aas Pugot Sound.
Following the Ugrian peoples in the Kauehatkan peninsula
and finally, into the Aleutians worn the Mongols, a race* related to
the Ugrians, who so original hone asms t> have boon in the n-ro
central part of Central Asia* Thi s race lived, armng the original s
s^ttlcrp,thc Ugrians,and being of practically tho sano race,finally
the two were so int^minglod by narriago that they were indisting
uishable. This Mingled race is tho recent coast Indian race* Al
ong the Aleutians Islands May be found cave- dwcllsrs who resenb
lo closely tho cave dwellers of their renote ancestors in the hills
of Central Asia. Likewise their cus.tons, traditions, and..nanners
have their counterparts in thsse of their far renoved relatives in
the ancient hone-land, ; ' •
Finally , by the intemingl ing of the Russians who cane
later with the nixed Ugrian^Mongol race,the present race of ^l.cuts
has resulted. These peoples, as have tho other peoples of Alaska,
through the c :ning of the whitoyan, have been rapidly exteminated.
The principal 90 ttl er. ent of tho Alouts is at Kodiak on the island
of that none. The race how nu lb era pro.bably only a few hundred.
GOLDEN MILLIONS:
, Probably every recruit who cones to Alaska hag visions
<f stubbing his toe on a nugget sufficiently large to set hin up as
one of the 400 as sson a9 he gets his Hon*Discharge* A little conv*
ers&tion with S urd>ughs,who in these parts are rather nassinistie,
akes hin doubt the practicability of these dreams#
However,this nay be,a little knowledge of Alaskan nine
and nining is not amiss*Placer :lining has been carried on in Alaska
since 1880, according to an article in K Stroller's -Veekly", and has
yielded gold totalling ^230,000,000 in value,enough to make every
soldier at Chilkoot Barracks a millionaire,,with sor.e twenty odd nil
lions left over to start a jackpot# Of this nore than f)200,000,000
has been mined since 1900,when the industry received the stimulus
of the output of the None iis'Ciict# Since 1906,when the diggings
put out ^18,600,000,the placer nining has declined,and in 1920 the
placer gold pined amounted to p3,373,000„ It has increased somewhat
during the last two years*
Aside frcn placer pining,nineral production in Alaska
is thought 15 be on a nore fim footing th an ever before .Prepara
tions for drilling are sufficiently advanced to assure the beginnin
of underground testing in 1923, )f at least one of 'the Alaskan petro
leun fields;the installation of larger placer mining plants has
continued,and operation of some of these is assured in 19231Active
lode (gold)development continued in 1923,and the copper production
was about 20^ larger than in 1921,with revived interest in prospec
ting for copper*