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land lines are exposed to the storms of every season, to landslides, to snowslides, to freshets and to forest fires. Over their safety the sentinel chain of Signal Service Corps men keeps watch day and night. Repair parties are ready to start at any moment from any station when word or sign of trouble comes. It is necessary frequently in the heart of the Alaskan winter for the men to make long sledge journeys while the mercury in the thermometer keeps company with the buib.

The officers and enlisted men on Alaskan duty keep Washington in touch with Nome, and if communication is broken experience has told the headquarters authorities that at the first signal of trouble a detachment is starting on its way over the mountain or through the valley or down the ice of the river to make the repairs which will put the Capital once more in touch with the remotest point of the military line far flung through the wilder

STRINGING A WIRE.

there was no butcher shop on the convenient corner. The government officials do curious things occasionally. It is hard when stationed on Pennsylvania Avenue to realize that a man cannot get all the food and any kind of food that he wants anywhere in the world. The extra allowance of milk, syrup and butter was allowed, but the condition was made that it should not be issued at any Alaska post where more than three men were stationed. So it was that where four men were gathered together bent on doing their duty the scurvy wolf was at the door, but where three men were assembled they sent him hungry away by feeding themselves with the milk and the butter and the syrup which a discriminating government said was good for three, but not for four.

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"FARTHEST NORTH" WIRELESS STATION AT NOME.

or

It was said in one of the opening paragraphs of this article that, "no American soldier would wait thirty minutes thirty seconds for an order to save life." Congress recently gave to Sergeant Roy F. Cox of the Signal Service a certificate of merit for not waiting on orders to go on an errand of mercy. A few words hidden away in the army . records tell what the Ser

geant did to secure Congressional recognition. His certificate of merit was granted "for highly meritorious service. in traveling thirty miles in a severe blizzard, rescuing a civilian from freezing and dragging him by sled sixty-five miles to Fairbanks."

Word came in to a little detachment of the Signal Corps that a prospector, a man seventy years old, was perishing in his hut at a point thirty miles distant. The cold was as severe as any that the Alaskan winter knows, and a blizzard was raging. The conditions were such that no one was asked to volunteer to go to the rescue, for it was thought certain that death awaited the man who would try to hit the trail that day. In fact there was no trail. Sergeant Cox said he was going and he went. He made the thirty miles with a dog sled and found the prospector apparently almost at the point of death. He gave him food and medicine and then knowing that the services of a surgeon were necessary at once if the man's life was to be saved, he started on the journey of sixty-five miles

to Fairbanks. He arrived there with the prospector still living and he lives today, altough it was necessary to amputate both his legs. Sergeant Cox was an inmate of a hospital for a long time, because of illness due to exposure, but he recovered and the experience in no wise weakened his love for the service. He is a Signal Corps man today and he has his certificate of merit, a thing which is prized above all other things by the American soldier, for it is the equivalent of the English Victoria Cross which is given only "For Valor."

Sergeant James E. Hogan did a deed. which was almost the counterpart of that of Sergeant Cox. He also won his certificate of merit. The records of telegraph line construction and maintenance in the Alaskan territory contain many stories of courage and of self-sacrifice of the officers, commissioned and noncommissioned, and by the privates of the Signal Corps of the United States Army.

In appreciation of the service in Alaska of the men of the Signal Corps of the United States Army it does not

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TYPICAL ALASKA TELEGRAPH STATION AND SIGNAL CORPS DETACHMENT QUARTERS. WITH STOREHOUSE FOR SUPPLIES.

seem that one can do better than to use the words of an official "who has seen and who knows." He says:

"These soldiers stand ready at all times 'to hit the trail' the instant that a wire goes down or a call for help comes. They are willing. They risk life and

limb, asking no questions and doubting
nothing. The extreme conditions of the
service and the necessity of the continued
maintenance of
maintenance of communication have
demonstrated the spirit of the American
soldier who has sacrificed himself to the
work."

Decision

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,

In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight,
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right;
And the choice goes by forever, 'twixt that darkness and that light.
-LOWELL.

CENSUS OF THE SALMON

T

By

RENÉ BACHE

AO count the salmon in Alaskan rivers would seem to be a task not merely stupendous but impossible. Yet it is being accomplished in a very systematic way by the government Fisheries Bureau, and for a purpose of utmost practical importance to the future of the commercial salmon fishery in that part of the world.

So far is this true, indeed, that the cost of taking the salmon census is being defrayed, up to date, by two of the biggest canning companies-the Fisheries Bureau having no funds to meet the expense involved, which amounts to about $6,000 a year. This, however, it should be understood, covers the cost only of counting of salmon in one large river, which was picked out for an initial ex

periment to determine the possibility and merit of the plan.

The stream in question is the Wood River, which, for the purpose of censustaking, was closed for the time being to the commercial fishery. There was no trouble about arranging this, because the Fisheries Bureau, under authority bestowed upon it by Congress, has absolute control over all the salmon streams of Alaska. It tells the canning concerns where and when they may catch fish, and when and where they will not be allowed to catch them. If it chose, it could suspend the salmon fishery altogether for an indefinite period in Uncle Sam's Arctic province.

What it wants to do, however, is to keep the fishery going, and to make sure that the supply of salmon shall be main

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LOOKING DOWN ON THE GATES THROUGH WHICH THE SALMON PASS TO BE COUNTED.

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RACK ACROSS WOOD RIVER, TO ASSIST IN COUNTING THE SALMON.

tained. Hence the undertaking here described, which, as will presently be seen, has a direct bearing upon the commercial problem. Thus, for example, now that it has been ascertained how many salmon run up Wood River to spawn, the experts are able to judge with accuracy of the number of fish required to maintain the supply in that particular stream.

Suppose that the requirement for Wood River is 500,000 spawning salmon. per annum. The Fisheries Bureau, then, will prohibit fishing in that stream each season until the necessary half million have passed up the river to the spawning grounds this matter being easily determined by extending a species of barricade, called a "rack," across the stream, allowing the fishes to pass only through narrow gates, and counting them as they go by. When the 500,000 breeding salmon are thus assured of safety, the canning companies will be told to go ahead and catch all the salmon they choose in the waters below the "rack."

The rack and gate method is the one that has been employed by the governinent agents to count the salmon in Wood River. Tally was kept of them as they passed through with the aid of an automatic click counter, held in the hand. Such contrivances are sometimes used nowadays to make a record of the number of people who visit a museum or other public building. On July 14 over

402,000 salmon went through the gates, on their way up, and the total count for the season was 2,603,651. Reckoning was only made, however, of the red, or "sockeye" salmon, this being by far the most important species commercially.

Now, it should be explained that each salmon river has what is called a "value" of so many fish per annum-which means simply that it can produce just about that number, and no more. The number is always limited, each stream having a definite capacity, which depends upon its area of suitable spawning grounds and the amount of food available for the young "fry."

To make this clear, it is necessary to explain that no river produces salmon unless it takes its rise in lakes. For the fish go up to the lakes to lay their eggs

though, as a matter of fact, they do not deposit their spawn in the lakes, but in small streams flowing into the latter. When they are big enough to take care of themselves, the young fishes find their way into the lakes. But, if there are too many young ones, there will not be enough food to go around, and they will perish in multitudes.

It will be seen that in this way the number of salmon in any river regulates itself or did so before greedy man appeared on the scene, to interfere with things. Recent study of the subject has proved that salmon, though their proper

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