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to its germ-destroying and invigoratingrays. Such an addition would be of greathelp in the most hopeful part of our medicalwork, the abortion of incipient consumptionand the restoration of invadedglands. In these last-mentioned cases itis sometimes wonderful to see the contractingand closing of open neck-sores,the gradual overspreading of the placeswith new, healthy flesh and skin, underno other treatment than prolonged exposureto direct sunshine.The cementing of the basement, nowmerely an excavationin the earth,so that it maybe utilized forlaundry purposes,is also much needed,proper hospitaleconomy in theseparts demandingthat all possibleactivities be gatheredunder the oneroof. And theproblem of drainageis only temporarilysolved by acesspool which it isvery difficult tokeep open inwinter.As it stands,however, St. Stephen'sHospitalhas alreadybrought new hopeto those who arelaboring for the.survival of theYukon Indians, and now that the cessationof the war will allow the staffingwith physician and nurses of the sisterinstitution already built and equipped atTanana, 350 miles farther down the river,that has awaited its staff these three yearspast, we shall attack the problem of diseaseamongst the natives of the middleriver with some prospect of coping with it.Here is an immense country, inhabitedfrom immemorial times by a vigorous,self-supporting native people; a countrythat is never likely, me judice, so far asmuch the greater part of its whole areaThe Arctic Hospital 43is concerned, to have any other inhabitants.There is no doubt that it once supporteda much larger population than itdoes to-day, and there is no doubt that itcould support to-day a much larger Indianpopulation than it does. It is stilla fine Indian country and it shows no signof even a tendency to become anythingelse. If any notion has been entertainedof white men pressing upon the Indianlands of Alaska as they pressed upon theIndian lands of our Western States, let itbe dismissed at once as utterly withoutfoundation.Of late years there has been much ex­It is rarely that we are able to expose children thus even in summer;the mosquitoes accompany the perpetual sunshine. The hospitalneeds a glass chamber where such exposures may be made.travagant stuff written about Alaska.Fifty years ago the country was laughedat as "Seward's Folly," and a generalimpression obtained that it was a landof permanent ice and snow. Now itis glowingly described as "the world'streasure-house of mineral wealth andagricultural possibility"; and there is asmuch truth in the one extreme as in theother. The favorite term for its mineralwealth to-day is "incalculable," and Ihave no quarrel with the term; wherethere are no figures there can be no calculation,and save as regards gold, themineral resources of the interior are virtuallyunknown. Its swamps and scrubby