Mr. WICKERSHAM. That population is in the third and fourth divisions. Now, your attention has been called to this large picture of the coal veins in the Nanana field at this point [indicating].

Senator WALSH. Is that picture made by the commission?

Mr. WICKERSHAM. No; it is not. It is a picture made by a photographer at Fairbanks, and enlarged for my use.

Senator LIPPITT. Is that taken from a photograph?

Mr. WICKERSHAM. Yes; it is from a photograph. I brought it with me from Fairbanks. This shows the thickness of those two veins, and there are said to be more than 200 feet in thickness of blanket veins of coal in this field at Nanana.

Senator WALSH. Have you seen the region yourself?

Mr. WICKERSHAM. I have seen the region, but I have never been at this particular place. However, it is so notorious that there is no question about it. Mr. Brooks. and the Geological Survey have examined these fields and described them fully, so there is no question about that.

Now, I call your attention to a map on the other side of this picture. There is a drawing of the State of Pennsylvania, with her whole coal field on the same scale as this map of Alaska, which is on the same cardboard. This map was prepared for me by a gentleman at the Geological Survey, and embraces as much as they then knew about the location and area of the coal fields of Alaska. There is a very much larger area, certainly known to be coal bearing, in Alaska than in Pennsylvania, and our anthracite coal is of equally high grade, the bituminous coal is equally high grade, and then we have, of course, these enormous beds of lignite coals in addition.

Senator WALSH. When you spoke of naval coal-high-grade naval coal-what did you mean by that?

Mr. WICKERSHAM. I mean coal such as they use on our war vessels. Senator LIPPITT. Would that be equal to the Pocahontas, Pennsylvania coal?

Mr. WICKERSHAM. Yes, sir.

Senator LIPPITT. Is it of a similar character to the Pocahontas and New River coal?

Mr. WICKERSHAM. Yes, sir; it is.

Senator WALSH. That is not anthracite ?

Mr. WICKERSHAM. No, sir; that is not anthracite, but we have anthracite there. We have anthracite coal in both of those fields of equally as high grade as Pennsylvania-as the best of the Pennsylvania anthracite. Now, these matters are not dependent on our statement at all. The Government, for years, has been making a special examination through the Geological Survey in respect to those coal measures in Alaska, and there are volumes in the Geological Survey with respect to them, so that you may get accurate information from the Geological Survey in respect to Alaska coal.

Now, we think, gentlemen, that the Government not only ought to build this road for the purpose of getting coal for the Navy, but we think it ought to be built so that the country up there may have the benefit of it. The Government of the United States owns 99 per cent of the whole of the Territory of Alaska to-day. Less than 1 per cent of that whole great territory is in private ownership. There is more unappropriated public domain in Alaska than there is in all other parts of the United States territory. So, as the owner of that

land, we come to you and say to you that you now own 99 per cent of this great country with all of its coal, with all of its gold, all of its fisheries, and all of its immense resources, and we want you to do, a little something for your own territory. We want you to do something to develop your own property. You say that this property belongs to the public who are going to reserve it and keep its great resources for the people. Then, if that is true, and you won't let individuals develop it, if you won't let individual enterprise develop either its railways or its coal, then do it yourselves. Congress has done that in the Philippines. Congress has built 425 miles of road in the Philippines. The Government did not build it as we are asking you to build it in this instance, but Congress put its approval upon it and became morally responsible for the payment of every cent of the money that went into the 425 miles of Philippine railroads; and I want to show you now, very briefly, if I can, how much more profitable it would be, how much more advantageous it would be to our country if you will do something of that kind in the Territory of Alaska.

Here are some charts which will explain what I want to say to you much easier than I can do it otherwise.

Here [indicating] is a chart prepared from official figures showing the sea and fur products of Alaska from 1868 to 1911, and also the mineral products for the same period. Beginning with 1868 and coming down to 1911 the total of the sea and fur products amounted to $222,710,036. You paid $7,200,000 for the Territory. You have received more than $222,000,000 out of its sea and fur products alone. Out of its mineral products you have received $206,813,594 down to 1911, a total of $429,523,630.

I have the figures for last year, 1912. In that year the furs amounted to $728,000, the walrus products, $18,000, the fisheries $17,373,536, gold $16,500,000, copper $4,904,000, gypsum, marble, and tin added make a total of $39,822,822 in one year.

The total official figures are not yet obtainable. The total actual production by Alaska last year out of the sea and the mineral resources amounted to more than $40,000,000. That is, in actual production. That is not the trade with that country. We bought from the United States large amounts of merchandise, but we produced more than $40,000,000.

Here are the figures in relation to the pack (cases) of canned salmon on the Pacific coast from 1864, when they first began to pack, to 1911. There was put up by the State of Washington during that period 13,070,452 cases; on the Columbia River during all of those years 17,503,530 cases; on the coastal streams of Oregon, 1,983,770; California, 1,445,674; Alaska, 36,389,737; and British Columbia, 16,644,721, making a total of 87,037,884, of which Alaska put up nearly one-half.

Last year Alaska put up more canned salmon than Oregon, Washington, California, and British Columbia combined. The total pack of California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaskathe entire Pacific coast-was 5,956,953 cases, of which Alaska alone put up 4,060,129 cases. Alaska put up more than $18,000,000 worth of fish last year-out of the waters of Alaska alone. We took out more than $18,000,000 in gold, more than $18,000,000 in fish,

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more than $4,000,000 in copper-more than $40,000,000 in actual production came out of Alaska last year. We only want 733 miles of railroad, and with it we will increase our production and trade many times per annum-not in the way of fisheries, because our fisheries are limited, but our gold, copper, coal, and other resources are not limited. Dr. Brooks of the Geological Survey is quoted as authority for the statement that there is more gold to-day in that little nub of ground around Nome, Alaska, than there is in California. Alaska is third this last year in gold production of the United States.

Senator WALSH. What relevancy to the fisheries products have these proposed lines of railway?

Mr. WICKERSHAM. Very little. They are valuable, however, with respect to the settlement of the interior, to our agricultural resources, and to the development of our coal and other mineral

resources.

Senator WALSH. That is to say, supplies for the canneries and the fishing establishments, and that sort of thing, on the coast, would be furnished from this interior region?

Mr. WICKERSHAM. The agricultural supplies would; yes. The agricultural capacity of that great interior country is not yet known to the outside world.

I live at Fairbanks, Alaska. That valley is 50 miles wide where I live, as level as this table, and as rich as the Mississippi Valley.

Here [indicating] is a comparative view of the total commerce of Alaska and the commerce of other countries for the years 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1909, 1910, and 1911. During those years Alaska had an average trade with the United States of $55,862,077.

Senator WALSH. Does that include both imports and exports? Mr. WICKERSHAM. Yes; that does include both imports and exports. I call your attention to the fact that here are 37 countries of the world which have a less total trade with the United States than Alaska has. The list begins with Scotland, Spain, Russia in Europe, and other European, North American, South American, Oceanic, African, and Asiatic countries. China had a little more trade with the United States than Alaska, Alaska's being $55,000,000 and China's being $56,000,000. And yet we maintain almost an army and navy over there for the purpose of protecting the "open-door" trade with China, whereas Congress does practically nothing to encourage trade with Alaska or develop it, but on the contrary actually does much to strangle it.

Senator WALSH. Where do those figures come from?

Mr. WICKERSHAM. They come from the Bureau of Statistics. They were prepared for me by a gentleman who is employed in the Bureau of Statics, and they are official.

The

This chart shows the same fact by a graphic illustration. Here [indicating] is Alaska, China, and Hawaii. I call your attention to the fact that our trade is greater than that with Hawaii, ours being $55,000,000 and Hawaii's being an average of $51,000,000. total average trade with the Philippine Islands for those years was $23,406,380. The trade with Alaska was more than double that with the Philippine Islands.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Nearly three times.

Mr. WICKERSHAM. Yes, sir; nearly three times as much as it is with the Philippine Islands, and yet we are only now asking for practically what you have done in the Philippine Islands, in the way of railroad development.

In 1867 the Government of the United States paid $7,200,000 for Alaska. You have received back in the way of internal revenues, customs, public lands, tax on seal skins, rent of seal islands, Alaska fund, agricultural experiment station, and miscellaneous, $17,792,464.17, down to 1911, in cash.

Here is the Álaska balance sheet. On the left hand is the production. Here is what the business interests, the merchants of the United States, have received from Alaska in gold, silver, copper, gypsum, marble and tin, and in fur-seal skins, aquatic furs, except seals, furs of land animals, walrus and whalebone products, and fishery products, a total of cash receipts of $446,640,984.79.

You have paid the original purchase price of $7,200,000, paid through the Treasury, from 1867 to 1911, $23,158,126.06, and through the Post Office, from 1867 to 1911, $5,458,548.19, or a total down to 1911 of $35,816,674.25, leaving a balance due Alaska on account of her actual cash production of $410,824,310.54.

That is only her production. Alaska has had a very large trade with you in the meantime. We have bought many million dollars' worth of shovels, engines, boilers, merchandise, food supplies, and all sorts of dry goods of every kind, everything that we use in that country. That is not included in that list of production. The merchandise that we have bought and taken into that country has not been included in these lists at all. The production on the one hand, and what it has cost the United States to get that immense production, on the other hand, is all that is noted on the chart. You see what a profitable investment Alaska is. I want to urge upon you that if you will go ahead and do your duty toward this great country and give us some aid, sympathy, and assistance, instead of strangling our development as you have done since 1906, we will do ten times as much for you.

I told you about the Tanana Valley, in which I live, 50 miles wide and hundreds of miles long, and as fertile as the Mississippi Valley. Of course, you begin to conjure up pictures of glaciers and snow banks and other Arctic scenes when Alaska is mentioned. There are no glaciers in the Tanana Valley. There are no glaciers north of the Tanana Valley. The glaciers of Alaska are in the southern part of the Territory, along the seacoast and in these immense mountains that line the coast washed by the warm waters of the Japan current, whose moisture, arising in the form of clouds, settles against these mountains, where the moisture is precipitated in the form of snow, forming these tremendous glaciers. The air is then freed from its moisture and comes over into the Tanana Valley dry. The Tanana Valley has no greater moisture, no more precipitation of moisture, than Arizona. The Tanana Valley would be an arid desert if it were not for the fact that it is frozen from the surface to bedrock and that every drop of water and every snowflake that falls in that country is conserved. It sinks into the ground and is frozen there. It is maintained there in cold storage, and when the warm spring sun strikes the ground it thaws the surface. When it thaws deep enough, we put in our gardens, and then as the moisture is

needed it comes from below. We have a subirrigation plant there which nature has put into operation that beats any irrigation project or reclamation scheme in any of your Western States, and it does not cost you and never will cost you a nickel.

Here is another proposition. Every spot on the earth's surface has the same amount of sunshine and darkness. The equator has 12 hours of and 12 hours on, but as you go north from the equator there is a difference. When you get to the Arctic Circle there is, theoretically, six months' sunshine and six months' shadow. But where we live, at Fairbanks, in the Tauana Valley, we have practically only two hours' sunshine on the 22d day of December. It is a cold, foggy, dreary day, and the sun skirts along the southern horizon for about two hours, when down it goes again and we are in darkness. But on the 22d day of March the sun has risen until we have 12 hours of sunshine and 12 hours of darkness. The sun keeps rising until, on the 22d day of June, we have 22 hours of sunshine. Then it begins to recede, and on the 22d day of September we have 12 hours' sunshine and 12 hours' darkness. Then it gets back to 2 hours on December 22. Between the 22d day of March and the 22d day of September we have threequarters of all the sunshine of the year in the Tanana Valley. We have 22 hours of sunshine after we put our seeds in the ground, 22 hours of sunshine for the crops to grow by, and they grow by leaps and bounds. With this ever-rising moisture just below the roots and this incessant sunshine we raise as fine crops in the Tanana Valley as can be raised anywhere potatoes, cabbage, carrots, beets, turnips, and everything of that kind, cauliflower, barley, and wheat.

Senator WALSH. What is your annual precipitation there?
Mr. WICKERSHAM. It is about 10 inches.

That, very briefly, is the condition of our climate.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. In reference to agricultural lands in the Tanana Valley, what proportion of them are taken up by homesteaders?

Mr. WICKERSHAM. No appreciable amount of them at all.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Why is that?

Mr. WICKERSHAM. Because our people are miners. They are looking for gold, for coal, for minerals.

Senator WALSH. You could not do anything with a crop, if you had it, could you?

Mr. WICKERSHAM. Oh, yes; there are a good many men engaged there in raising crops.

Senator WALSH. That is, just simply for local consumption?

Mr. WICKERSHAM. For local consumption; yes. We now raise practically all of our potatoes and cabbages and root crops for local consumption in the mines and around the town. There is no question about the agricultural capacity of that region.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Are the lands subject to homestead entry? Mr. WICKERSHAM. Yes; they are subject to homestead entry. Going back to the question of the duty of the Government to do something in Alaska with this railroad proposition, because of the great necessity from a war standpoint, I call your attention to this

map.

Here [indicating] is a flattened globe of the north part of the world. Here [indicating] is the Arctic Ocean and the North Pole. Surrounding it are the countries of the northern part of the world,