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! I GATE TO THE Wonderful Growth of Skaguay is a modern wonder. Not many weeks ago the place practically <li(l not exist. To-day, with ita carefully laid out streets aud its scores of well stocked and cosy private dwellings, it preseuts all the appearance of a thriving Northwestern town. Houses are being rushed up with astonishing rapidity, while merchants are so nnmerons an.I enterprisiug tnateompetition has already reduced their wares to almost bottom prices. The starting up of a steam laundry has caused the "biled shirt" to be accepted ' as good form iu this out of tho way settlement, while the establishment of thirteen saloons plainly indicates the prevalence of a generous atmosphere of conviviality. The New York Herald's special correspondent, iu au entertaining article published herewith, gives a graphic description of Skaguay as he found it entering the fourth week of its mnni1 ? * _a tr cipai existence. xie says; Nc thing in the history of Western boom towns will compare with the mushroom growth of Skaguay. Ben S \ Moore, the man who located the town ^ site, left for the Sound on August 10, at wnich date there was his own log cabin, the store aud the bunkhouse of f. the Alaska aud Northwest Trading Company aud a number of tent*. When he returned there were whole streets of wooden dwellings, which the owners had themselves located and had paid n registry fee to United V States Commissioner Smith of fire dollars. Not only were these newMtmAri nermifcted to Innate on (lantain Moore's laud on payment of the fee, hat it is said that Mr. Smith accepted ' f the fee and gave a registration receipt ' to half a dozen different people for the same plot of land. The neirly ap pointed Land Commissioner and Register, Mr. Dadley, will therefore V, hare some difficulty iu unravelling the conflicting real estate ownership on the town site. Skagnay is on a tide flat, with a tide running over twenty feet, aad therefore has a stretch of half a mile below h. tidewater mark. All the passeugers HRt v - * f* ?, -o " . "? ~ -* ? jp: . ssaouax eat. j*> by big steamers are taken off in row oarshta a wan 11 a? ah a (a f hta WW0| wiftt m V* UVIU V?u ?V wwvr L. $ miles, awarding to the state of the tide, when thej era carried on the books of the boatmen to comparatively f . dryland. It is amusing to hear the Xt shrieks of the women when on the baek of the boatmeu splashing through the water. Only a month ago, when the Will amette landed her ooaple of thousands of gold seekers, all the freight and passengers' luggage were landed in these email boats, or small scows, and -damped on the share pell in ell, hig; gledy-piggledv, from which ea~h owner Jtad to hurry to seonre his particnlar -goods before the rapidly incoming - tide rained them or swept thera away. Immense eoows are now in use, big fl ' - enough to take Hie whole of a ship's *j\'r - cargo. These, 'when loaded, float to s r shore on a high tide, and each owner gets out Lis own goods as soon as he ?. * oau, and woe to liim whose belongings | \ -chance to be near the bottom of the phuge pile. I watched the slearner Qneen unload in this way. There was a good deal v; /' ' M B ' " THE BEGINXIKC of hasiliug, necessarily, but I heard | 110 complaiut of any goods being stolen J or lost?except temporarily. In fact, the whole community seems wonderfully honest considering that the black sheep of the contiueut are herding iu this direction. ^ . Merchants in tents leave their goods haiiging ontside all right; pilgrims leave their camps on the trail, with all their belongings scattered about; yet hut few cases of pilferiug have been v. heard of. aud only one theft of money. ^FJiis was iu the easo of a man namod "\V. S. Dnvisou, of Seattle, who for twelve cJays had $1400 in his kit nnder a pile of ftvsd in his tent. He left his tent often in perfect confidence, l?nt oue diy he fout*d his belongings hud b , . GOLD FIELDS. 1 IP * ??& the Town of Skaguay. ^ been disturbed and that the money was gone. Another Seattle man at once gave him $100 with which to take out his I feed, for he had already gotten his foods some distance alonf the trail But this was only th*t beginning of ; Davison's bad luck. He was one of the j first on the trail, and worked beyond ! Lis strength. .Iu9t past the summit j he had an attack of pneumonia, and, j getting worse instead of better, had to give up. He is now here waiting for ! BROADWAY the next steamer, having left his outfit with his partner, who hopes to Hell it to some one who will pay for the difficult journey they made with it up the pass. There does not appear to hare been any pilfering of goods left on the beach from the steamers. In a short time thero will be no chance for this. The two long piers are hotly competing for the honor of being first completed and early next month both will be in operation. That of the Skagnay Wharf Company is already piled to its ocean end, a length of over fifteen hundred feet, in a enrviug line from the northern to the southern side of the Kaw 4kna klnolrtnrr r\(T A1 I fiiwtkap rtrtm _ uvj) ?uuo v/ii mi iui vuvi vwu* petition in this line. This will be known commonly as the Juneau Pier, its promoters being J. P. .Torgensen, hardware merchant: E. Valentine, jeweller and E. D. Sylvester, editor of the Searchlight, all of Junean. The other pier will be know n as the Seattle Dock, as it is largely baikod by capital from that Sound city. This starts from the street south of Broadway and runs straight to the completed dock nndar the clifT. Both will have warehouses, to which goods will be taken direct from the ship, and there await the proper claimants. These two great piers are impressive to the incoming stranger, who knows that the town is only a month old, but as to the rest he can see but little from the steamer's decks. Tents dot tbe shore the whole of its width, with here and there a small wooden building. The latter are rapidly taking the place nf ??nra? linm?i inrl ulnrAS for the reason that cold weather and heavy rains have set in, and more especially very high winds. Captain McKinnev, the Chairman of the Vigilance Committee, estimates that there are now ouo hundred and fifty building* of wood, and that there wonld hare been many more bnt for the scarcity of lumber. There is a sawmill hard at work now, lumber is coming in by every steamer, and nearly every one having tho purpose to winter here is patting np a habitation of wood. Mauy are erecting larger and more substantial buildings than their neods require, as a speculation, hoping to sell at n large profit when the rush is renewed next ^ . nX.' V \\Xs" W \ ' - ^ I OF TIIE TRAIL. spring and -when they once more pack np for the Klondike. ^ Probably as many as fifty of such substantial dwellings are going up. A curious phase of the situation among those who have decided to winter here is that nearly every one of them believes that he has just the natural gifts necessary to make a successful merchant. They are all putting their great stakes into goods, which they hope to turn into money again, with a large profit, by the spring, and then sell out au established business when the weather permits them to leave for the gold fields. Thus is the new city building up. There are thirteen saloons, a majority of their proprietors haviDg plans for getting to k. . tlie Klondike as soon as possible, and | there are between three and four hundred merchants of whom the same thing may be said. Not only on Broadway, but along the intersecting streets and among the big timbers on each side of the trail, are these merchants' tents and stores, little and big, and all sorts and conditions of men are interested in them, from the spectacled, muscleless store clerk, clumsily handling the saw and the axe on his new building, to the stolid backwoodsman, to whom the making of change is a difficult mental | operation. One would think that the town would be overdone with so many merchants, and perhaps it will be soon, when the steamers are fewer and pas| sengers on them not numerous enough to be worth mentioning. But there is a population of over five hundred still in tents, and it is believed that there will be contiuual coming and going ! until the beginning of December, to 5?p| , SKAGUA^^^^8^ be then renewed the month following. So many merchants, however, has had the effect of bringing down prices, which, considering the freight charges, are now rapidly getting to the bottom, making it noarly as cheap to winter here as at Juneau o; any other northern point. But the visitor must not expect luxuries. He must be content with a bunk and provide his own bedding. The bunk will cost him from seventy-five cents a night up. Meals at cheap restaurants are fifty cents each. He will, however, in all probability, hire a tiny shack and learn to cook for himself if he is to be a gold hunter. Then, as before stated, he will find the price of the bore necessaries of life no higher in proportion thau Seattle. Flour is $1.50 per sack, potatoes $1.25, bacon twelve to fifteen cents per ponnd. The infant city is well laid out, and not only on Broadway but on most of the side streets on either side up to where the trail turns off to the left into the timber thero are new stores and residences. Among the timber also there are many merchants, in tents or | rough shacks. t In the early history of the city?that is, three weeks ago?boiled shirts were publicly derided, as were also shaven chins. Now there arc four barber shops and two or three signs reading "Troy Laundry." There is also a bath house in course of construction, and this is a luxury that tired men coming off the trail will appreciate. Lumber is still scarce, rough lumber at nine dollars per thousand feet at Seattle selling for about twentyfive dollars here. There is little doubt that a hundred or more buildings will be erected during the next thirty days. Now, what are the prospects of Skaguay's permanency? The men who are building the wharves and the threestory hotel and other buildings evidently believe in its future growth and VaI in nnflvincr fn i |>I . jl vt nuviV AO uvvrnug w give it the slightest hope of permanency except as an entrance to the gold regions. That they do not at the present time possess any such entrance that is at all what a highway for the expected crowds in the spring should be is conceded. But the intention now is to build a wagon road along the Skaguay River to the foot of the mountain. This will cost a great I deal of money, but it will in all prob! ability be carried out, for every one i who has made an investment here unI derstands the situation. It is estiI mated that from 100,000 to 150,000 I gold seekers will flock to Alaska next spring, and that they will begin to come in in February. Skaguay must be able to announce long before then a better trail than the present one or the trade will pass her by ar d the town boom will be "hushed." She will also have others besides the Dyea trail to compete with, and, in short, her future depends entirely upon hor making the best inland route to the Yukon territory that can be made. Her citizens are remarkably public spirited and liberal. A town meeting two nights ago subscribed $1500 for fire protection in a few moments. A surveyor is now mapping out a route for a wagon road along the river. Money will have to be raised to meet the cost of this road and work on it be started immediately to insure the permanency of Skaguay as a port and as a town of even its present proportions. . American Woman Honored. Mrs. May French Sherman, the African explorer, recently elected a member of the English Royal Geographical Society, is the only woman ever thus honored. She is an American by birth. Equipped Kor War. It has always been Lord Wolseley's boast that when starting upon a campaign his equipage is of the lightest, consisting of little more than a toothbrush and a clean shirt. Nnmerona Big Cities. There are known to be 209 cities in the world with populations of over one hundred thousand persons each. ,1 ML . * ; . - 7 AGRICULTURAL TOPICS. Guano From Hen*. The manure from hens, unless grainfed in summer, is usually less valuable than it is in winter. But it is none the less well worth takiug care of. It will heat very rapidly iu hot weather if kept in piles. As it is usually deficient in phosphates, it is a good plan to mix eome of the commercial phosphate with the manure, as it is heating. It always contains enough sulphate of lime or land plaster to absorb the ammonia, while the phosphate with the nitrogen, which the hen manure abounds in, will make a fertilizer very nearly equal to guano. Hollyhock* on AVndte I'laoe*. A correspondent of the Garden and Forest tells of some hollyhocks planted live or six vears aoro on land enriched by aa old wood pile aud since left to themselves. They have increased and multiplied in the rich soil, sending up many seedlings and grouping themselves in beautiful colonies. All shades of bloom are now seen from white through pale flesh tints to deep maroon, varied by buff aud lemon tinted flowers. They have crowded out the weeds that disputed territory with them, and now own the soil. Hollyhocks are ideal flowers for such waste places. Foxgloves. Foxgloves are best planted away from scarlet flowers, as their purplish pink spikes do not harmonize with that colcr. The pare white foxgloves are effective against a background of darl; foliage, when planted in large clumps, having a stately effect. They remain in flower a long time. They can be planted in April and only ask a thinning out if too thick and an occasional stirring of the soil. The dwarf, otherwise known as the Calir fornia sunflower, is a variety which well deserves a good word and a good place in the garden. Its foliage is clean and of an attractive dark green; its blossoms of a clear bright yellow, the hue of sunshine, and they are very double and about the size of a wellgrown dahlia. In fact they resemble the old form of that flower to a considerable degree. Aa a low hedge a row of dwarf sunflowers is literally "a blooming sncoess," and we incline to give it preference over the zinnia for the purpose. It is difficult to think of sunflowers under this compact, clean, bright-faced doable flower. A Good Old Kotatlon. The six-year rotation so long followed in this section, the Shenandoah valley, has some strong points in its fav: The crops daring the six years are iu this order: Corn, followed by wheat, the ground being harrowed and the wheat drilled in. Immediately after the wheat is cut the next year, the ground is plowed thoroughly, prepared by harrow and roller, and sowed again to wheat, this time accompanied with abont a bushel of timothy to 6ix acres and the same quantity of clover in the early spring. Then three crops or hay are mowed, making the six years. Very often four crops of hay are made. I have not counted the second crop of clover usually cut and hulled for seed the first season. Since western seed generally can he bought at low prices, many think it better to pasture, or cub this second clover for cows. It will be noticed that this rotation, running six years, calls for plowing only twice during that time, and gives three crops of hay, which we think pays better than other crops. Farmers who follow this old-time way are not getting rich, but they are probably holding their own about as well as others who follow newer and shorter plans. Try all and hold fast to that which is good, is not a bad motto.?New England Homestead. ltoup. The cold fall rains will soon set in, and with them will come the dangers of that most dreaded disease among poultry, the roup. Old fowls will hardly be through the monlt and young fowls will not be sufficiently protected with feathers, therefore, unless extra care l>e nsed, the disease, which in its first stage is nothing more than a cold, will rapidly spread and the entire flock will soon be affected. Ronp, when fully developed, is so nearly incurable that no remedy has as yet been discovered which w 11 justify the expense and time employed n trying to effect a cure. It can readily be seen that under snch conditions, a preventive is the proper remedy to apply. Carefully watch the fowls, and when the first symptoms appear, check the evil at once. A cold can easily be detected if a trip is^ade to the poultry honse when tho fowls have all gone to roost, Those that are affected will find trouble in breathing, and will make u rattling sound. If such are examined, the eyes will have a feverish appearance and be slightly swollen and watery. Take them gently from the roost, bathe the head aud eyes with warm water and eastile snap, and anoint with vaseline: then with a small machine pil can, inject a few drops of kerosene into their nostrils and month, and place them in a warm, dry place, free from draughts and dampness. InBide of thirty-six hours all signs of cold will have disappeared and freedom can again be allowed. A few drops of kerosene added to the drinking water will act as a preventive. Should tho disease be so far advanced that the eyes aud mouth become cankered, kill the bird at once and bury the carcass, as such fowls, if eventually cured, will be absolutely worthless. Brick Houiri Moat Durable. It is a mistake to suppose that stone houses are the most durable. A wellconstructed brick house will outlast one_built of granite. ~ WILL USE NO LANCUACE." ETow Coming; Generation* Will Look and Aet, According to a Scientist. This is the -way Dr. K. M. Burke, President of the psychology section of the British Medical Association, says HEAD OF THE MAN* OF THE FUTURE. the head of the man of the fntnre will look. The new race, he says ''ill nse no language" because it will need none. The interchange of thought between jndividuals because it will be simply a mental effort on the part of each unaccompanied by any physical manifestation whatever. As one person evolves his idea the other will instantly grasp it by means of a subtle telepathy, which even now is the gift in a more or less modified form of many people who are only vaguely conscious of tneiv strange power, nnu, in many m- i stances, too timid and fearfnl of ridi- | cule to publicly confess it or attempt to develop it. With future generations this gift will become more and more frequent in individuals and of greater and greater power, until this silent interchange of thought is at last as common as is now speech and writing. Nor will his powers stop even there. He not only will be able to exchange thoughts with people thousands of leagues away, but will be able to see them os distinctly as though they were physically present and even see if he chooses what is passing anywhere in the world. There will be an end oi eyes and ears, the gross physical channels through sensations now must pass to the mind. They will all go, for they will all be useless?as useless1 as the mechanism of the voice, by which sensations and ideas are now conveyed from the mind outward. There may be some scar or meaningless excresence where these orgaus once were, just as now there are physiological suggestions of man's ape origin?humiliating reminders of the brute ancestry from which the godlike being was evolved. But that will be all,and even that will melt away and disappear at last. I>ocoinotlT0 Bnllt In Ten Hoars. A locomotive was recently built in ten honrs at the Stratford works of the Great Eastern railway. It was a main line goods engine with a tender. Before the actnal construction commenced the various component parts were placed close at hand, ready for fitting together. The workmen began early in the morning, and continued briskly till the breakfast bell sounded. After half an hour*s rest the work* men returned to their task, and labored steadily until the dinner hour, and thus the work proceeded until the engine was at last completed, with the exception of a coat of paint. This was quickly laid on with a spraying machine, and in less than half an hour was perfectly dry. The locomotiye was then sent on a trial journey a few miles on the line, and all proved satisfactory, so it was sent with a luggage train to Peterborough. It has been in active service ever since, and is proudly displayed as a marvel of engineering quickness. Hard on Pat. Gentleman (to an Irishman)?"Well, Pat, I see yon have a small garden." Pat?"Yes, sir." "What are you going to set in it for next season?" "Nothing, sir. I set it with potatoes last year aud not one of them came up." "That's strange; how do you explain ur "Well, sir, the man next door to mo set his garden full of onions," "Well, had that anything to do with your potatoes not growing?" "Yes, sir. Bedad, them onions was that strong that my potatoes couldn't see to g"ow for their eyes watering." ?Answers. Thousands of Mites A rrow-Fierccd. Some years ago H. X. Clement, an Indiana farmer, shot at a flock of wild geese in the Kan Ka Mee marsh aud bagged several of them. One of them wore as a bre?6tpin an arrow nine inches long. The nrro4vaS 80 unique FLYING FROM THE YUKON PIERCED BY AN ARROW. in formation that it could be ascribed to no tribe of Indians in the United States or in any other country. Finally Professor O. T. Mason, of the National Museum, said the bird and arrow could have come from uo other place of the globe than the Yukon Valley. Thousands of miles the goose had flown with an arrow in its breast before turning up its legs at the shot of a Hoosier farmer. . -r*" \ CURIOUS FACTS. ^ > J Turtles and tortoises hare no teeth. >/r The Bomau penny was valued at , .J abont fifteen cents. . * . More people over 100 years old are ;q found in mild climates than in the higher latitudes. The greatest ocean depth ever found by measurement was in the $ Atlantic near Puerto Bico?4651 J Jg fathoms. Of the 400,000 Christian hymns that have been written it is said that Charles Wesley alone wrote 6500 and Isaac Watts 400. Within the Antarctic circle there has f jt$ never been found a flowering plant; in the Arctic regions there are 762 differ ent species of flowers. It has been estimated that an oak of 1 avorage size, during the five months it is in leaf every year, sucks from the earth about 123 tons of water. The horse, when grazing, is guided \ \ entirely by the nostrils in the choice of proper food, and blind horses are '-] never known to make mistakes in their diet. Vegetables, suffering physical in- j jury, are thrown into a state of fever. vB Potatoes showed a rise o? temperataro . ^ of a little over two-tenths of a degree ? at the. end of the socoud day, falling to \ < the end of the fifth day. The Kussian photographers have a -p strange way of punishing those who, $ bavinrr received their nhoto. do not pay their bills. They hang the pic- v*^j tares of the delinquents upside down at the entrance of their studies. Rats often leave a building before it falls down, because, it is probable - 'to that the settling of the beams and /i bricki' causes noises that, inaudible to human beings, may be perfectly so, and very alarming besides, to the rodents. Spanning an inlet of the Yellow Sea \3 near Sangang, China, is a bridge five and a quarter miles long, with 300 piers of masonry, and having its roadway sixty-four feet above the water. . V j This work is said to have been aceom- jfl plisbed by Chinese engineers 80# years ago. 4 One of the largest banks in New York makes a searching examination of each department at least thpee times a year. It is not announced, but begins at a minute known only to ^ the President. He summons three Leads of departments, and they take* | charge of a clerk's books and firm aasets so quickly that nothing can be changed or concealed. Yv'Jh Tenement-Howie Fire*. | There is an article in St. Nicholas on "The Fire Patrol," written by ?8 Charles T. Hill, who has contribatedla aeries of papers to that magazine on j the New York Fire Department. Mr. Hill says: t At fires in the homes of the poor these detachments of the patrol work : just as earnestly and conscientiouslyN to save property as they would in the expensively furnished mansions of the /aB rich. At tenement-house fires they flS j are of great service. First they aid in . o ig getting the people out; then, gather* iug the goods together, the patrolmen protect them from water with tarpau- ff8| ! iin covers. The majority of these fires break out in the basemtnts or cellars; < then, following the air and light-shafts ; to the top floor, they spr$a 1, and do I the greatest damage in the upper I stories. To extinguish these fires, tho . | other floors below have to be flooded, i and were it not lor the Fire Patrol in ^ | many cases the poor families would lose everything tney owned. | One of the captains of tha patrol re- . 'V marked: "Why, it would do your i heart rood if yon could hear how pro-x . 'v'yjj! fuse these poor people are in their ?. -Tffi | thanks, and the blessings they shower ^5 on us when they find we've saved their things. They go running a'-onnd, ,a ^ wringing their hands and crying: 'Everything's lost! Everything's lost!' -V 3 and then, when the fire is out, we load them back and show them their things, *?3 as dry as a chip under the covers, and .M ?well, say?there isn't anything they wouldn't do f<?r ns! Half the time they're not insured, and it isn't oar '^4 business to protect people who are not; ' 'I? but we're not supposed to know every- ? I thing, oad our orders are to protect property first and find out whether it . is insured afterwards; and it is not our , ^ fault if we save the little all of a lot of < a poor creatures wlio half the time 1 haven't a change of clothes to their ' back. You bet, we get to work just as ^ quick in a tenement-house fire as in a , big house on Fifth avenue, aud we do the same work in both places, no matter whether it's for the rich or the poor." Great Ilnnter of Moose and Hears. Y I VT*' r s > Nathan B. Moore, of Bingham, Me., ' ^ has probably the most remarkable record as a huuter possessed by any ... v one in this generation. He is seventy- S3 ?1 ? ? oiwl floronir.AiiA i j I11I1U VtTiU Uiu, satata. *"4 Kj?W I years he has hunted and been a guide 2 in the Maine woods. Two hundred . ^ and seventy-six moose, eighty-four bears and deer unnumbered have fallen before him. The most wonderful pert of the matter is that until recent years y he has carried a rifle that weighed only J I four and a quarter pounds and using a bullet no longer than a buckshot. He scouts the idea that a large bullet is necessary to bring down large game. z A buckshot planted in the right j pot * will, he says, bring down the toughest T animal that ever roamed in Maine. -'-jk His knowledge of the woods is as ? wonderful as his skill as a marksman. Every iucli of northern Maine up to the Canada line is as familiar to him as the streets of Bingham. It i3 said -.A that he can be blindfolded and taken' to any place in these immense Maine forests and in less than twenty minutes after removing the covering from his eyes he will tell exactly where he is. He is equal to a thirty-mile tramp any j day and expects to he a hunter till ha lies. -I d