In addition to the main line, two branches will be built-one from the main line to Lake Superior, and one from Manitoba to the American boundary, where a road already connects with Duluth, at the head of Lake Superior. The Pacific terminus of this road must be on the narrow tongue of land between the Frazer river and the northern line of Washington Territory, at which point it will be connected with the Northern Pacific railroad, now building; and that Washington Territory must eventually receive more direct benefit from this Canadian road than British Columbia must be clear to all familiar with the geography of the two sections.

The completion of the Northern Pacific and the Canadian Pacific railroads will open up the rich agricultural and mineral resources of the vast region from the great lakes to the Pacific ocean, and inaugurate new channels of commerce and new organized communities, soon to join in the union of States from the Arctic to the Rio Grande.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

ALASKA.

History-Geography-Area-Mountains-Forests-Rivers-Seas -Bays-Harbors-Islands-Climate-Seasons-Mines-Natives -Fish-Animals-Fur-seals-Commerce-Population-Towns -Progress-Religion-Future prospects.

ALASKA, formerly known as Russian America, embraces the extreme northwestern end of the continent of America; bounded on the north by the Arctic ocean and on the west by the Pacific ocean and Behring strait, which separates it from Siberia and Asiatic Russia, from which at the narrowest point in the strait it is distant but about twenty miles. On the Arctic side, the eastern line terminates at Demarkation Point in the line of the one hundred and forty-first degree of west longitude from Greenwich, which course it follows south, dividing the Territory of Alaska from British Columbia on the east, until it reaches Mount St. Elias, about sixty miles from the Pacific ocean, where it turns southeast, and in an irregular line follows the course of the coast, leaving a belt of mountain chain of about an average width of one hundred miles and about five hundred miles in length, until it reaches the one hundred and thirtieth degree of west longitude, a little north of Simpson river, and enters the Pacific ocean north of Graham and Queen Charlotte islands, thus cutting a strip of about one hundred miles in breadth and five hundred miles long off the western shore of British Columbia. From this point, in a southwesterly direction, the coast line of Alaska on the