File:Wonderland, or, Alaska and the inland passage (1886) (14760874895).jpg

Identifier: wonderlandoralas47schw (find matches)
Title: Wonderland, or, Alaska and the inland passage
Year: 1886 (1880s)
Authors: Schwatka, Frederick, 1849-1892 Hyde, John, 1848-1929. From the Great Lakes to Puget Sound
Subjects: Northern Pacific Railroad Company
Publisher: St. Paul : Northern Pacific Railroad
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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bout ten or eleven miles south of Sitka, on the mainland, but protectedseaward by a breakwater of (Necker) islands, is Hot Springs Bay, on whoseshores are springs which give it its name. About six or seven years before weobtained the Territory, the Russian American Fur Company, whose headquarterswere at Sitka (since Baron Wrangell established them there in 1832), built ahospital at Hot Springs, which was said to have had wonderful remedial powersin skin and rheumatic diseases ; but, for some reasons, the place has been aban-doned (probably the lack of government by the United States), and the build-ings are reported to be in a state of decay. The Indians used the waters forillness, and thus called the attention of the Russians thereto. The temperatureof the water is from 120 to 125 degrees, and it contains a number of elementsheld in solution, as sulphur, chlorine, manganese, sodium and iron, besides com-binations of these, and with other elements. It is worth a visit to see these hot
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uQ) THROUGH WONDERLAND. ?7 springs, with the thermometer soaring up above the hundreds ; for, m a day ortwo, by way of strange contrast, you will be among glaciers and icebergs tower-ing as far in feet above your head. The only way out of Sitka harbor, without putting to sea, is back through PerilStraits again ; and, passing back, one can hardly realize that it is the same water-way, so radically different are the views presented. In the harbor of Sitka isJaponskoi (Japanese) Island, which may be identified by the captains chart ofthe harbor, and which has a curious history. Here, about eighty years ago, anold Japanese junk, that had drifted across the sea on the Kuro-Siwo, or Japan-ese current, was stranded, and the Russians kindly cared for the castawaysailors who had survived the dreadful drift, and returned them to their country,after an experience that is seldom equaled, even in the romantic accounts ofmaritime misfortunes. The drifting of Japanese junks, and those of adjacentcou

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