TANANA-FAIRBANKS ROAD
IS A WINTER BOULEVARD
Fred Date, foreman of construction for the Alaska road com
mission, spent a couple of days in town last week. He now has a
crew of nine men at work on the highway between Long lake and
Sullivan City. The road between between this city and Hot Springs
will be considerably shortened by making a new route part of the
distance, thus eliminating that portion which gave more or less
trouble during the winter months. All the niggerheads along the
road are being cut away, and after a good fall of snow has been
packed thereon an automobile could be driven over it at a fair rate
of speed without hindrance or discomfort. It is estimated that the
traveling time between Hot Springs and Tanana will be lessened
by three hours.
Mr. Date’s work during the major portion of the summer was
on the trail between Hot Springs and Fairbanks. This road is now
considered a winter boulevard; the miles of niggerheads which
were last winter the dread of stage drivers, passengers and freight
ers have been entirely removed, and the distance has also been
shortened by making several advantageous cutoffs.
On or about October 20 Mr. Date will return to this city and
begin work on the Tanana Koyukuk trail to Arctic City. This
trail will be symtematically staked and flagged, making the here
tofore dangerous route for a sti’anger one of comparative safety.
The stakes and flags will be placed at short distances apart, and a
musher will always be in sight of a landmark and can easily calcu
late his whereabouts. A short-cut trail is now used from Betties
to Arctic Bity, the distance being about half that of the old river
route. Bob Buchan, the mail carrier, is responsible for the blaz
ing of this trail, and he also put considerable good work on it.
"When he has finished the season’s work on the Koyukuk trail,
Mr. Date will begin work on a trail from the Yukon river into the
flhandlar country.
LIEUTENANT SCHICK
LEAVES FOR OUTSIDE
Lfc. Jacob Schick, for the past
three years quartermaster at Ft.
Gibbon, has been relieved of his
responsible position by Lt. Thorn
linson, a late arrival from regi
mental headquarters at Ft. Sew
ard. On Sunday last Lt. Schick
took passage for the Outside via
St. Michael on the steamer Her
BILLIARDS
AND POOL
Elegant New Tables
Gibbon Bar
BEST OF WET GOODS
man. After a visit to Washing
ton, New York and other eastern
cities he will join his regiment—
the Tenth infantry—at Ft. Benj.
Hai’rison, near Indianapolis, Ind.
JIM MURRAY DRGWNS
IN IDITAROD RiVER
On the steamer Tana, arriving
last Monday afternoon from the
Iditarod, was the body of James
Murray, formerly of Ester creek,
who was drowned in the Iditarod
river recently while descending
that stream in a small boat from
Otter creek to meet his sister,
Miss Rose Murray, who was on
the Tana enroute to the new dig
gings. Murray’s boat had, in
some manner, got adrift, and in
attempting to recover it by swim
ming, was drowned. The re
mains will be buried at Fair
banks. The sister will remain in
the Iditarod this winter. Murray
was an old timer in the Tanana
valley, and was widely known.
PARAGRAPHS 1
v.
Halley’s comet is to reappear in the
heavens this winter. Astronomers say
it will be visible to the naked eye in
October about Midway between the
Pleiades and Hyades on the west and
Castor and Pollux in Gemini on the
east, or about 7 degrees to the right,
or west, of the bright star Athena in
Gemini. The comet has been observed
at intervals of about 75 years since the
fifteenth century. Records show its
probable return many centuries earlier.
It last visited us in 1*35, when its tail
was about 20 degrees long and its nu
cleus like the red star Antares.
When the first American census was
taken, in 1790, tire work was done by
050 employes. To gather and put to
gether the data of the census of 1910
will require the services of an army of
nearly 70,000 men and women.
In considering the polar question it
it is just as well to remember that
Walter Wellman also had ambitions.
The occasional tourist who journeys
adown the Yukon is thrilled with the
knowledge that he has been within the
Arctic circle: yet it is pointed out by
an exchange that at Hammerfest, Nor
way, he encounters electric lights in
the huts of fishermen living more than
200 miles within the circle.
A curious source of wealth is report
ed by the French consul at Mongze, in
Upper Tonkin. It lies in wood mines,
where a pine forest has been swallowed
by the earth in some cataclysm. Some
of the trees are a yard in diameter.
They lie in a slanting position in sandy
soil, which covers them to a depth of
about 24 feet. As the top branches are
well preserved, it is thought the geo
logical convulsion which buried them
cannot be of very great antiquity.
There is record of wheat growing in
: China as far back as 3000 B. C.
The last trace of animal life observed
by Dr. Cook on his trip to the pole was
a bear track at the 83d parallel.
There are indications that prohibi
tionists, Hushed with success in so
many states, will strive to banish to
bacco along with damnation in its
liquid form.
There may remain some doubt as to
the North Pole, but readers of the
picture papers ought to be unanimous
in the opinion that he had a mighty
gcod-looking wife awaiting his returp
home.
At Horntown, Va., depredations on
Edward Thompson’s watermelon patch
cost the owner several thousand dol
lars; so he installed a number of live
Florida alligators and adveriised their
presence in the melcn patch. One .f
the 'gators caught John Ellison, col
ored, 11 years old, in the act of steal
ing a melon and hel l him by the lfg
till he was taken into tus.od .
Poultry products in Missouri in 1333
exceeded in value the combined gold
output of Colorado and Oregon for the
! same period.
Played Tag on the Ice
Forgetting for the time that
he was 30 years younger when
he used to engage in such antics,
Lynn Smith last Sunday joined ,
in a game of tag on skates, on
the lake east of town, and conse
quently was laid up with an in
jured knee. The ice appeared
to be less flexible than when
Lynn was a boy. *
Farnam Returns
Frank Farnam, the Sullivan |
creek operator, who has been
spending the summer on the Out
side, returned to this city last
Saturday, and reports having en
joyed a splendid vacation. Mr.
Farnam has sold his interest in
the Midnight Sun association on
Sullivan creek, and is contem
plating making a trip to the Idit
arod shortly after the freezeup.
Uncle Andy Vachon Now
A. G. Vachon last Sunday eve
ning received a telegraphic mes
sage announcing the birth of an
eight-pound daughter to Mr. and
Airs. Peter Vachon at Fairbanks.
The little lady is her fortunate
parents’ firstborn.
A Pointed Question
The teacher was describing the dol
phin and its habits.
“And, children,” she said impres
sively, “a single dolphin will have two
thousand offspring.”
“Goodness,” gasped the little girl in
the back row. “And how about the
married ones?”—Ex.
Special Sunday Dinner at the Ken
tucky restaurant from G to S p.m.—
Mrs. M. E. Cooper, proprietor.
FRENCHMAN WANTS
WELL OF EXPLORATION
Camille Flammarion, the French sei-'
entist, wants all the governments to
join in digging toward the center of
the earth. He calls it a well of ex
ploration, but expects it to transform
civilization and make a glorious new
world of gold and platinum.
Beneath our feet are secrets to make
men like demigods, he suggests. We
know nothing about the planet wo in
habit. Geography deals with the sur
face; astronomers have determined its
form and position, weighed and meas
ured it; but what the earth is remains
a mystery. Tunnels piercing mount
ains only cut through humps of the
earth’s crust. The deepest mine of the
world, near Rybnik, in upper Silesia,
is only a mile and a quarter deep.
Is the globe liquid or solid? No one
knows. Until recently science sup
posed it a liquid, incandescent center
covered by a thin crust. The rate of
increasing heat observed in mines and
the molten matter thrown out of volca
noes furnishes calculations that made
the crust less than TO miles thick.
Modern geology, however, refuses to
admit that such a thin shell is protect
ing us from such a furnace. The enor
mous fluid mass of the interior, follow
ing the attraction of the moon, would
smash against the trust twice daily in
terrible interior tides.
We would live in perpetual earth
quakes whose violence we cannot im
agine. Vast crevasses would open
uuder our feet and white-hot molten
matter would pour out of them. The
speed of earthquake waves and the
feeble intensity of actual crust undula
tions, discovered and measured at Pots
dam by Herr Hecker, prove that our
GO TO THE
Golden North Cafe
While in Tanana for Good \Ieal»
and Eiest Service.
MEALS AT ALL HOURS BEST GOODS OH MARKET
ED Y. LEE, PROP.
GO TO THE
YUKON SALOON
For Kine Wines, Liquors find Ciyars
Pool 'T'cibles, Dunks
C. J. Smith, Prop. Horse Stables and Dog Kannols
Neatly-Printed Stationery
ADDS MORE DIGNITY AND GIVES GREATER SATISFACTION IN YOUR
BUSINESS CORRESPONDENCE THAN ANY OTHER ITEM OF OFFICE
EQUIPMENT.
The Leader^ EB£SMMS£ TMSl SbiBSlL
AND SOLICITS A TRIAL ORDER. OUR PAPER STOCK IS THE BEST
OBTAINABLE. TELEPHONE US YOUR WANTS IN THE STATIONERY
LINE, OR FOR JOB PRINTING OF ANY KIND. SEE OUR LINE OF
LETTER HEADS, BILL HEADS, ENVELOPES, ETC., ETC.
situation on the earth's surface, while
unstable, is nothing like so dangerous
as an incandescent fluid exterior would
make it.
Tiie latest theories suppose the earth
throughout to have the general rigid
ity of steel and to be both solid and
elastic. Rut this, too, says Flamma
rion. is only a theory. We do not
know what is under our feet. The only
way to ascertain is to dig the big hole.
But what about the increasing heat
observed in mines? Theory apart, it
seems to be very real. It does not
frighten Flamraarion. He affirms that
science and industry are ready to meet,
it, and who knows that the heat will
continue to increase in ratio as we get
deeper down?
In existing mines heat increases on
an average of one degree centigrade
per 3:5 yards depth; but it is not the
same all over the world. In some
mines the heat increases one degreo
centigrade every CO yards down: in
others 100 yards, while in yet other
parts of the earth it goes up one degree
centigrade with every 10 or 15 yards
depth.
It scarcely tallies with a thin crust
and a molten interior. But what else
could cause the varying heat observed
in mines? Scientific men, both in Eu
rope and America, are coming to be
lieve that it may be caused by radium
—or even yet more powerful ray-giving
substances as yet unknown.
A fascinating article, written by ono
o' our foremost scientists for a recent
American magazine, gives all the cal
culations which show what a small pro
portion of radium scattered among the
rocks beneath our feet would make up
the heat lost annually by the earth in
rolling through frigid space. And tlio
calculations indicate those active ra
dium layers r.ot far from the surface.
They may begin at three miles' depth.
There is a strong theory of modern
science by which the heavier metals
are situated, in mass, lower down.
Aluminum, the lightest, is scattered
all over the clay of the earth’s surface;
but the gold and platinum we secure so
painfully is where we find it by acci
dent. Their great masses exist deeper
down.
Out of the big hole might come un
limited gold, platinum—and what? Un
limited motive-force from that interior
heat, those unknown metals whose
properties will help to transform life.
Flammarion says that the big hole
may be at least three, four or five miles
deep.
To begin with, the heat conditions
will be infinitely more favorable than
in a stuffy mino. The big hole will bo
at least 300 yards in diameter. In such
a vast circle—with its vent to the free
air above—the refrigerating industry
will play a great role. Flammarion
and his engineers have planned Titanic
machines for keeping the sides of the
hole frozen. Giant cranes and excava
tors, snch as are beginning to be seen
at Panama, will tear out half-frozen
masses of dirt and rock.
At two miles depth, according to geo
thermic theories, the temperature of
boiling water should be reached. Here
unending motive force should be tapped
—in vast horizontal halls dbg round in
the hole’s sides by the same refriger
ating processes. In these great halls,
the Titanic steam-generating machine
would almost work themselves—with
out fuel. The men tending them would
spend their time in chilled rooms round
about them, here and there—venturing
to the edges of that heat, for necessary
adjustments and manipulations,through
chilled corridors of asbestos or other
feeble conductor.
Flammarion is not alone in this ter
rific scheme. Eminent engineers—who
took it up at first, perhaps, out of mere
friendship for the astronomer—have
planned the machinery as for an actual
industrial undertaking.
Hunting on Old Man
A. G. Frenzel and Charley
Erhart came in last week from a
successful huntin<; trip which
extended onto the waters of Old
Man river. Snow was so deep
there Sept, la that travel with
out . nowshoes was very difficult.
They have some meat cached
which they will return for soon.
H. Connett and E. H. Clark
have put their sleds in readiness
for the first snow, when they
will go to the Old Man to hunt.
The distance is about 100 miles
to creeks heading against the
Tozi divide and Sowing into the
Old Man._
Job Printing—Leader office.
^vmi HAVE S0METHIN6 lying
IUU around in the way
that you have no use for, a
Tanana Leader classified ad. will
turn it into money for you and
take it away. Try it.