is by steamer from Seattle to St. Michael, a distance of 2500 miles, and then by river boat up the Yukon, 1700 miles to Dawson City. By this route it takes thirty-five or forty days, and the fare is $180. The steamers permit only 150 pounds of baggage for each passenger. The two steamers that leave before the river is closed by ice this fall cannot carry more than 150 passengers each. This route is the more expensive, and some think the more comfortable.

The second route is overland from Juneau, and is the most perilous, the most subject to hardships and consequently the most fascinating fortune-hunting journey that could be imagined. Steamers run from Seattle to Juneau, which is the metropolis of Alaska, and thence a small steamer transports the seeker after gold up Lynn Canal and Chilkoot Inlet to Dyea, sometimes called Taiya, which has just been made a port of entry by Secretary Gage for the benefit of the incoming horde of miners. The distance is 650 miles. Dyea is just at the head of the northernmost branch of Chilkoot Inlet, which is itself a branch of Lynn Canal, the extreme northern limit of navigation, and is one hundred miles due north of Juneau. At Dyea the overland jour

ney begins. The outfit, which for the long period of isolation in the interior is no small affair, is packed on sleds and hauled for twenty-seven miles over the mountains and over the deadly Chilkoot Pass to Lake Lindeman, the first of the series of lakes reaching up into the interior. This passage of twenty-seven miles is the most difficult part of the whole journey. It would be bad enough if it were made without baggage. A good traveler, in prime condition, unhampered by an elaborate outfit, can make the summit of Chilkoot Pass from Dyea in twelve hours. Mr. Pratt, of the United States Coast Survey, who was in Alaska on the boundary commission several years ago, left Dyea with a companion at 9 o'clock one morning and reached the summit of Chilkoot Pass at 9 o'clock the same night. But that was a case of moving light infantry. Ordinarily it will take a miner at least two days to make the difficult ascent with a portion of his outfit, and sometimes it is necessary for him to go back to the starting point for the rest of his outfit, for it is to be borne in mind that transportation companies have not yet secured a charter to do business in Chilkoot Pass. Thus it is that at least six days might be used up in getting over