Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 01.djvu/322

ALASHEHR. by a partly ruined wall, and contains eight mosques and five Greek churches. Remains of ancient sculpture are to be found. Alashehr is connected by rail with Manissa. and is the seat of a Greek archbishop. The population is estimated at about 20,000. Alashehr was founded by Attains Philadelphus, King of Pergamos, about 200, and is supposed to be one of the “seven churches of Asia” mentioned in the Apocalypse.  ALASKA (said to derive its name from an English corruption of Al-ay-ek-sa, the great land, and formerly known as Russian America). A territory of the United States, comprising the extreme northwestern part of the North American continent, together with all the islands near its coast and the whole of the Aleutian Archipelago, excepting Bering's and Copper islands, lying off the coast of Kamtchatka. It is bounded on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the Yukon District of Canada and by British Columbia, on the south by the Pacific Ocean, on the west by the Pacific Ocean, Bering Sea, and the Arctic Ocean. The greater part of the mainland lies between the 141st and 168th meridians of western longitude, but the most westerly of the islands, Attoo, lies in 187° W. The mainland on the north extends to 71° 30′ N. lat., and on the south, a narrow strip, about 30 miles wide, stretches down the Pacific coast to 54° 40′ N. lat. at the meridian of 130° W. long.; total length of mainland from southeast to northwest is about 1150 miles; greatest width, 800 miles; area, about 590,000 square miles, exceeding that of the original thirteen States, and equal to nearly one-sixth of that of the United States.

. Alaska is divided by its physical features into four regions, distinguished by great differences of climate and productions: (1) The southern coast region, or Sitka district, extending from Dixon Sound northwestward to Cook's Inlet and bounded inland by the watershed between the coast and the Tananá and Kuskokwim rivers. (2) The Aliaskan Peninsula and Aleutian Islands. (3) The triangular drainage area of the Kuskokwim River, between the Alaskan Mountains southward and the Yukon watershed on the north. (4) The basin of the Yukon, and the plains northward of it to the shores of Bering and the Arctic seas.

(1) The Coast District.—This consists of many islands, a narrow coastal table-land, and the western extensions of the Coast Range, which are from 50 to 75 miles wide, and which northward of Lynn Canal run behind (east of) the St. Elias Alps, pass through Canadian territory, and then reappear to swing around and down into the Aliaska Peninsula as the Alaskan Range; while the St. Elias Alps border the coast from Cross Sound westward to the Kenai Peninsula. The Coast ranges consist of many irregular and nearly equal uplifts, set with peaks reaching about 8000 feet of altitude. The St. Elias Alps, however, are narrower and more regular, and contain some of the highest peaks on the continent, and their western continuation, the Chugatch Alps, bear the greatest glaciers known outside of the polar regions; this range is distinct from the Coast Range topographically and geologically. Among its most prominent peaks (in their order northwestward) are: Mount Crillon (altitude, 15,900 feet), Mount Fairweather (15,292 feet), Mount Vancouver (15,666 feet), Mount Cook (13,758 feet), and Mount St. Elias (18,024 feet). (See .) In an isolated position, about 100 miles north of the mouth of Copper River, is the volcano Mount Wrangel (altitude 17,500 feet), which was in a state of eruption during the early years of the century. Along the southern coast are numerous (1100) rocky, mountainous, forested islands, separated by glacier-cut “sounds” and channels, forming the Alexander Archipelago (area, 13,000 square miles), whose largest islands are Prince of Wales, Admiralty, Baranov, and Chichagov.

The coast confronting these islands, and westward to the Aliaskan Peninsula, is the region of the massive glaciers and magnificent scenery for which Alaska is famous. Rivers of ice occupy every gorge in the littoral mountains, fill the head of each of the many deep fiords that penetrate the coast (all eroded by the still greater glaciers of the past, for everywhere the ice is steadily diminishing), and increase in size successively northwestward. Among the best known are those about the head of Lynn Canal, and those coming down to Glacier Bay, where two glaciers are especially noteworthy—the Muir and the Pacific. The former discharges into the head of the bay, and its front presents a line of ice-cliffs over 200 feet in height, and more than three miles long. The Pacific glacier descends from the Fairweather Range west of the bay, and, like the Muir, discharges daily an enormous number of icebergs, sometimes of huge size. Wherever the mountain channel down which the ice flows opens at a distance back from the shore it spreads out like a fan or delta, and the confluence of groups of such glaciers forms the mighty ice-walls that border the coast westward, of which the Malaspina Glacier in Yakutat Bay is most conspicuous. This is described by Russell as a plateau of ice having an area of five to six hundred square miles, and a surface elevation of about 1550 feet. Another scientific explorer says of it that the greatest of the Swiss glaciers would appear as mere rivulets on its surface, yet many other masses of moving ice reaching tidewater to the westward approach or even exceed it in dimensions and grandeur. The well-known Valdez Glacier has fifteen miles of frontal ice-cliffs, and many lives have been lost since 1897 in attempting to cross it to the interior. (See .) The principal rivers of this district are the Copper, with its affluent the Chechitna, both practically unnavigable on account of rapids; and more westerly, flowing into Cook's Inlet, are the Matanuska, Knik, and Suchitna. The last-named is navigable for light-draught boats for about 110 miles, while its main tributary, the Yetna, is navigable for 100 miles above its mouth, and forms a part of the route to the Kuskokwim Valley. This coast district is bounded on the north by the watershed between it and the Tananá and Kuskokwim rivers, consisting of a line of very lofty elevations called the Alaskan Mountains, which continue the Coast ranges behind the St. Elias Alps and around westward to the Kenai and Aliaskan peninsulas. It is studded with lofty peaks, increasing in height toward the west, where the uplift culminates, about 100 miles north of Cook's Inlet, in Mount McKinley, 20,404 feet in altitude, which is the highest peak in all North America. Close by are unnamed peaks nearly its equal. Other great mountains in the same uplift are the Iliamna