ward one of the richest, most glorious mountain landscapes I ever beheld, peak over peak dipping deep in the sky, a thousand of them, icy and shining, rising higher and higher beyond and yet beyond another, burning bright in the afternoon light, purple cloud bars above them, purple shadows in the hollows and great beauty in a thousand forms awaited us at every turn in this bright and spacious wonderland."

For me the Alaskan Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands have always had a special charm. It is with a mingled feeling of emotion and pride that I review the impressions I set down upon one quiet afternoon in the autumn of 1902, as I sat on the high point of land that sloped from the mountains back of me to the sea in front of me, and in the face of this unusual landscape read from the pages of its history the story of its dramatic creation and its more peaceful and gradual development.

Behind rose a range of lofty snowcapped mountains, peak upon peak, graceful in outline, but so massive in appearance, so solid and immovable, as to

give one a feeling of utmost security-a feeling that these great earth masses had been unchanged throughout the ages. From my position they curved slightly both to my right and to my left, and I could see for many miles in both directions this same great range as it fell away from its snowy summit to the lower foot-hills sloping gently to the sea, which spread before me, peaceful and quiet. Everything was so hushed, so secure, that it seemed as though peace must reign here forevermore, regardless of the indisputable evidences of violence that I had but just read from the story told by the land about me- the story of a mighty power once capable of putting all this great land in motion, of lifting it as a man would lift an apple in the palm of his hand.

Just ten years later this mighty power once more displayed its quality, and Mount Katmai, only a few miles from where I had been sitting burst forth as the world's greatest living volcano, not this time to elevate or extend the land, but to assume eruptive power. The whole top of the great mountain was blown to

It

atoms, and hurled through the air. is estimated that five cubic miles of solid earth and stone, converted into volcanic ash by the awful concussion, were instantly flung up, and so powerful was the force behind it that vast quantities fell a hundred and fifty miles away. At Kodiak, one hundred miles distant, the whole landscape was covered a foot deep with volcanic sand ashes.

The crater left in the top of Mount Katmai is the largest in any of the living volcanoes. Its lower basin is now filled with water, forming a lake a little over a mile square.

From the surface of this lake to the highest point of the rim above is 3700 feet, almost three fourths of a mile. The earth blown into the air in that one short and awful moment was forty times as much as all of that removed in the construction of the Panama Canal.

But Alaska's greatest wonder, which, incidentally, is the world's greatest scenic wonder, is not the volcano of Katmai. Here, indeed, is that desire of the jaded appetite, something different, something so unlike all other activi

ties of nature that the world has no records of anything with which it may be compared.

Standing upon the higher surrounding land, the mighty and terrible Mount Katmai in the background, one looks down upon a real inferno, extending for miles within high walls of lava and other volcanic matter, surrounded by powerful living volcanoes. Here lies the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. Thousands of steaming and smoking jets in various forms and sizes rise from its floor, to merge into one great cloud that drifts upon the winds. Here and there brilliant patches in all the rainbow colors paint the floor and walls of this strange valley, but these patches are not the living flowers known to other parts of Alaska. They are flowers of sulphur thrown up from the furnaces of the giant laboratory leagues and leagues beneath the earth.

Strange as it may seem, one may descend and walk with reasonable safety between these phenomena, dodging a hissing steam jet, breathing the different gases fresh from the depths of the

infernal regions, avoiding streams of boiling water. There are steam jets that one dare not approach, others upon which one can cook a meal; there are icecold glacial streams, and even the ice itself, and myriads of steam jets debouching into the same little lake, where the water is hot in places, cold in others. Mr. Robert F. Griggs says:

"As far as one could see down the broad, flat-floored valley, great columns of white vapor were pouring out of the fissured ground and rising gracefully, until they mingled in a common cloud which hung between the mountain walls

on either side. We could not see how far the activity extended, for about five miles down the valley the smoke had closed in, cutting off any further view in that direction."

This great phenomenon, the most bewildering and exciting of all the world's natural wonders, can neither be exaggerated nor faithfully described; but there it is, the climax of a country conspicuous in beauty of a more usual order, a country of sea and mountains, of warmth and cold, of flowers and ice, a country preeminently fitted to become a land of homes.

房

N May, 1882, the chief secretary of Ireland and

the under secretary of Ireland were stabbed to death in Dublin. The London "Times" announced that the crime had "disturbed and interrupted the life and business of the entire world," but I must protest that the life and business of Zerbetta, Ohio, went on quite as usual. Few of my associates in the seventh grade of the public school knew that Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke had existed or that they had ceased to be. Our elders discussed the matter when corn and cows failed as topics. My father gave the fact three minutes' space in a sermon, and my mother was sorry for their families. Only Martin O'Shea, the county jailer, raised the voice of approval. He said it served them right, but was straightway rebuked by Captain Fergus Healy.

Healy made his remonstrance in a tone heard all over the central square of the flat town. He sat his mare by the gates of the blue-brick jail, and committed verbal massacre on old O'Shea for ten minutes, while loungers gathered, grinning. In Meagher's Brigade the captain had acquired a pointed style and an immense strength of lung, so all Zerbetta knew that he was ashamed of the Phoenix Park murders on behalf of Ireland, and a mild cheer followed when he rode off. But John and Owen O'Shea, the jailer's red-haired twins, avenged their father on Connal Healy that afternoon when school was over. A relief column, headed by Ethan Ross and me, came to Connal's aid, and the O'Sheas were driven back into the high school yard, their proper territory.

"Dad says there 's all kinds of Irish," said Connal, wiping his nose on my

shirt-sleeve, "an' the O'Sheas are shanty Irish. Let's lay for 'em in the morning, huh?"

But Captain Healy's largest barn burned that night, and so diverted our activity to afternoons of pleasure among the delightful charred wreckage. Ethan and Connal, with their black hair, were statues in coal by each sunset, and my mother mourned over my smeared shirts. The farmers of the neighborhood idled on Healy's porch over furtive glasses, so that some went less sober home, for the captain was a generous host and a widower. He was, too, a scholar and a wit, and I think he got a repayment from listening to the drawling talk of the county. Local gossip was mingled with tales of the Civil War, and I remember the captain's dark, long face writhing away from a grin into courtly. composure when Jackson Smith took the air with some statement on land strategy. Smith was the local naval hero, and his judgments had the advantage of absolute inexperience, while they were the less debatable since given as opinions of Smith's Brother Pete. Now, Pete was dead, so his views were sacred.

"You can call a live man a fool," Healy once observed, "but good manners prevent my exposin' the idjucy of a corpse, and I would n't hurt Jack's feelings for all the world."

Smith lived across the river from Healy and the Rosses, and there was a common saying that he had married his farm, for he was not a native. He was a burly, handsome man, and it was suitable that a landed heiress should marry him. Certainly he made an excellent manager for her farm, and all small boys adored him for his good temper, his sea lies, and his embellished person. He was marvelously tattooed.