a subway cost? And above all, where is
the money coming from to repay its construction?

In Northern Alaska almost the same difficulties would be met with as in
Arctic Siberia, for here also spongy tundra covers enormous tracts of
country. A company has, however, been formed for the purpose of laying a
line between Iliamna on Cook's Inlet and Nome City which will, when
completed, be really useful and profitable. Cook's Inlet is navigable
throughout the year, and it is proposed to run a line of steamers from
Seattle on Puget Sound to this port, where passengers will be able to
embark on a comfortable train for Nome instead of facing a long and
painful journey by dog-sled. I understand that this work has actually
been commenced by the "Trans-Alaskan Railway Company," but not with any
idea of connection with a possible Siberian system. This will be merely
a local railway, which, judging from the increasing prosperity of Nome,
and the fact that the line will pass through the rich Copper River
country, should certainly repay its shareholders with interest. The
extension of the White Pass Railway as far as Dawson City is only a
question of time, but the idea of prolonging it to Bering Straits was
not even hinted at when I was in Alaska.

All things considered I cannot see what object would be gained by the
construction (at present) of a Franco-American railway. That the latter
will one day connect Paris and New York I have little doubt, for where
gold exists the rail must surely follow, and there can be no reasonable
doubt regarding the boundless wealth and ultimate prosperity of those
great countries of the future; Siberia and Alaska. But it is probably
safe to predict that the work will not be accomplished in the lifetime
of the present generation, or even commenced during the existence of the
next. When, at the conclusion of the journey, I arrived at New York, I
was asked by reporters whether I considered it possible to connect the
latter city by rail with Paris. Most certainly it would be possible with
unlimited capital, for this stupendous engineering feat would assuredly
entail an expenditure (on the Siberian side alone and not including a
Bering Straits tunnel), of fifty to sixty millions sterling. It seems to
me that the question is not so much, "Can the line be laid?" as "Would
it pay?" In the distant future this question may perhaps be answered in
the affirmative, but at present nothing whatever is known of the min