STEAM HEATED HOT AN DICOLD BATHS
t Copper Block Hotel
VALDEZ, ALASKA
“The House of Comfort”
PH0NE 7 FOR MEN ONLY
Do Your Christmas
Shopping Early
An Excellent Line of
Nugget and Ivory Chains; Rings, Scarf Pins, Brooches,
Fobs and Cuff Buttons from which to choose.
A Brand New Selection of
Hand Painted China in Writing sets; Ash Trays, Placques.
A Large Assortment of Toys.
OWL DRUG CO.
Same Location New Management
strictly fresh Eggs, Butter, Fruit
and Groceries, and appreciate
prompt deliveries, try
KING’S GROCERY
Phone 188
Independent Laundry Co.
Satisfaction Guaranteed | I Foot Keystone Ave
Telephone fl6 • I Rouarh Dry lCc lb
When in Chitina Stop at the
CHITINA HOTEL
Finest Hotel in the Interior—Well Heeled, Cleeo Rooms.
Bar in Connection. Rate* Reasonable
PRICKS OK METALS
MAKE SHARP ADVANCE
The middle of November sees all
of the metal markets in a blaze of
glory. In each case there is a large
production, probably a phenomenal
production, but the demand is so
large that the output is readly ab
sorbed on a scale upward. Verily,
this is a bull market in the metals.
In copper the strike at the Nichols
refinery, reducing the American pro
duction of electrolytic copper by a
bout a million pounds a day, gave
the market the fillup it needed. Buy
ers began to think that no matter
how plentiful copper might be next
year, when Chuquicamata and In
spiration are expected to be going
real good, for awhile copper might
be scarce, especially in view of the
facts that producers were well sold
ahead and had no great accumulation
of stocks. Their thoughts of this nat
ure prompted them to action, and
they bought freely.
Some characteristics of the ex
isting copper market are deserving
of comment. Buyers appear to have
abandoned the policy of coming into
the market together, contracting
for huge blocks, and then remaining
away for a long time. During the
last month there has been good bus
iness from day to day, each buyer
playing his own hand and contract
ing for copper as he thought it wise
to do. On the other hand, producers
have displayed no tendency to dang
le copper over the buyers’ beads
but have supplied it liberally on a
scale upward. Not yet has copper
been put to an extravagant price.
Within a month the price for lead
haB risen from four and one half
cent to five and one fourth cents,
the successive advances following
large and satisfactory selling at each
previous price. The demand for lead
both., for domstlc consumption and
for export continues large, but in this
metal, as in copper, the producers
havefollowed the policy of making
hay while the sun is shining and have
deemed it wise to convert lead into
money as fast as they could.
The demand for spelter appears
to be insatiable, for in spite of the
rapidly Increasing production prices
have risen again. The great mystery
is how so much of it is being used,
for the domestic galvanizing business
for peaceful purposes continues all
but paralyzed—Engineering and Min
ing Journal.
Jim Doggett has returned from a
trip to the Summit.
MINING FATALITIES
ARE BEING REDUCED
V. H. Manning, director of the
Bureau of Mines, has complied fig
ures showing that 458 less men were
killed in 1914 than in the year 1913.
The total nurhber of men killed in all
mines and quarries in the United
States in 1914 was 3,193. In the year
1913 the number was 3,651.
"The totals do not by any means
tell the whole story.” said Dr, Man
ning, “There are more than a mill
ion men employed in the mines and
quarries, and the death rate for the
year 1914 was 3.16 for each 1,000
men employed, as compared with
3.49 for the year 1913. These figures
mean than in every 3,000 men engag
ed in mining one man was saved in
the last year. In other words, in near
ly. every mining camp of any size in
the country there is one miner spar
ed to his family, who would have
been killed, had the same fatality
rate obtained in 1914 as in the prev
ious year.
"These results are an eloquent
tribute to the unceasing nation-wide
campaign which is being carried on
in behalf of the miners by the opera
tors, the miners themselves, the state
mine inspectors, and the Bureau of
Mines. It has taken the combined ef
forts of all these agencies to bring
this about, and the Bureau of Mines
is indeed proud of its share in it, and
exceedingly grateful to the state mine
inspectors and others who have so
willingly co-operated toward this de
sirable end.
”1 minx it is to me credit ot
American manhood and American
ideals that while the European na
tions at war are issuing their terri
ble casualty lists with the names of
killed and wounded by the thousand,
we have so many agencies striving
not to kill but to save life, and that
we can issue lists showing a dwindl
ing death rate in our American
mines. I do not mean by this that
we have in any way reached ideal
conditions. More than three men
killed out of every one thousand em
ployed in the mines is too big a per
centage of deaths. It includes much
more than the natural hazards of the
Industry. What we are striving for
is to get the rate down to that point
and with the loyal assistance we are
receiving from so many sources, we
expect to accomplish that much.”
-.- j
George Smith, of the Gfanby
mine on Solomon gulch, was an out
going passenger oti the Admiral
Evans.
8HKKW1) GERMAN SNIPER
IN A FARMER’S GARB.
Dawson News: We got a beast of
sniper this morning (writes a corres
pondent from somewhere in France),
and the manner of his taking was
rather curious. His teeth betrayed
him. We were about eight hundred
yards from the nearest German
trench and, tike all regiments, we suf
fer a good deal from want of drink
ing water, About half a mile to our
immediate rear is a small stream, and
we used to steal out at night for wa
ter. Two of our men had been
wounded and two others only just
missed, and the firing came from
somewhere behind our lines.
A day's close search revealed noth
ing, and meantime there was no wa
ter, and our chief was getting sav
age and sarcastic. So early in the
morning, just before the dawn, we
threw out a great loop of men and
gradually beat inward, but found
nothing but a shapeless old French
farmer driving his riding play for
potatoes. We questioned him, but he
flew into a rage because we were
trampling over his beloved ground
and ordered us off. Many of our
men speak French and worried the
old man, but he knew nothing of the
“espion,” and “sacre bleu, would we
get off his field, or must he complain
to the general, who would be just.”
We could no nothing but leave,
and our subaltern reported to the
chief, saying that the old farmer had
gnashed his teeth as us, and “jolly
fine teeth, and clean too,” pursued
the sub., reflectively.
“What!” snapped the chief. "Mr.
Jones, you will take a couple of men
and go carelessly to this old farmer,
engage him in conversation, whilst
you men pin him from behind sud
denly. I don’t want to lose men cap
turing a dangerous sniper with clean
teeth.”
Enlightened and feeling rather a
bit ashamed, the sub. turned away,
got a couple of men, and secured the
old farmer. Oh, but he fought like a
tiger, and the three men were rolling
over and over on the ground for some
time before he could be safely tied.
He was a young man and a search
revealed a belt of rifle cartrides and
two Lueger automatics. Later in
the day we found a little dugout in a
ditch with a rifle hidden away under
a screen of brushwood.
Between Fear and Inclination
The popular Greek sentiment is
for armed alliance with the entente
forces. The politic Greek fear, on
the part of the government, is that
such alliance might prove a bad
choice. If victory for the German
cause was clear, there is the differ
ence in sentiment between the king
and the people to be encountered,
which difference doubtless enforces
neutrality so far as Germany is con
cerned. The same consideration pre
vents active alliance with the enten
te allies.
With Rouinania there is also neu
tral uncertainty. There is said to be
diplomatic bidding as there was in
the case of Bulgaria, and that the
satisfactory price for Roumanian
support to the one side or the other
has not yet been named, ltoumania
is better worth bidding for than
Greece; but there is some doubt
whether it is the mere matter of
price that holds that nation eneutral.
In the second Balkan war Rouma
nia was a partner with Serbia in
stripping Bulgaria of some of the
territory that came to her as spoil of
the first Balkan conflict. Approxim
ately 3000 square miles of Bulgar
ian territory passed to Roumanian
control and jurisdiction. Over that
there is keen resentment in Bulgaria,
which fact adds greatly to the diffi
culty of aligning these two nations
in the one fighting cause.
There is one further fact that in
fluences Roumanian policy in favor
of the entente allies rather than
the central allies. In Hungarian terri
tory. bordering on Rouraania, there
live approximate 3,000,000 Rouma
nians. That territory has long been
coveted by the Roumanian govern
ment: and in the triumph of the al
lies there is the prospect that it
might be acquired. To yield to Ger
man persuasion and become allied
with the German cause would des
troy that prospect.
On the other hand, it is doubtless
the cause in Roumania, as it is in
Greece that the fear of a possible, or
as the situation may be reviewed
there, aprobable German victory, pre
vent an armed alliance with the ente
nte forces. It looks there very much
as if in both of these countries it
were a case of “letting ‘I dare not’
wait upon ‘1 would’.” Portland Tel
egram.
Capt. Geo. T. Rose, who has been
captain of the steamer Tyontc during
the past season, was a passenger on
the Admiral Evans this morning for
the States. The Tyonlc is owned by
J. A. Herbert, and was frozen in at
Anchorage while dlschargin coal
from the Seldovia c6al mine.
The government of Argentina has
employed a Japanese rice expert to
conduct an extensive campaign to in- j
crease rice production throughout ‘
the republic.
MIGHTY MOUNT RAINIER.
Sahsxded by a Volcanic Exploaion, It
Still Towara Up 14,408 Feet.
Mount Rainier, in Washington. cov
ers >00 square miles of territory aud
rises 14.408 feet into the air. in shape
It Is not a simple cone tapering to a
slender, pointed summit like Fujiyama,
tile great volcano of .lapau. It is rath
er a broadly truncated mass resembling
an enormous tree stump with spread
ing base and Irregularly broken top.
Its life history has been a varied one.
Like all volcanoes. Rainier has built up
Its cone with the materials ejected by
its own eruptions—with cinders and
steam sbredded particles and lumps of
lava and with occasional Hows of liquid
lava that have solidified Into layers of
bard basaltic rock. At one time it nt
tallied an altitude of not less than 1(1.
000 feet, if one may Judge by the steep
inclination of the lava and cinder layers
visible in its flanks. Then followed a
great explosion that destroyed the top
part of the mountain and reduced its
height by some 2.000 feet. The volcano
was left beheaded, with a capacious
hollow crater surrounded by a jagged
rim.
I.ater on this great cavity, which
measured nearly three miles across
from south to north, was filled by two
small cinder cones. Successive feeble
eruptions added to their height until at
last they formed together a low round
ed dome—the eminence that now con
stitutes the mountain’s summit. The
higher portions of the old crater rim
rise to elevations within u few hundred
feet of the summit and. especially
when viewed from below, stand on I
boldly as separate peaks that mask and
seem to overshadow the central dome
FUTURE OF THE HORSE.
Can the Heavy Draft Animal Survive
the Motor Truck?
The heavy draft horse Is doomed
He will uot vanish suddenly, hut his
hour has struck. Motor vehicles nl
ready are displacing him in cities. The
cheap farm tractor will do the same in
the country. In a few decades the
great, magniliceut brutes will be little
more than a memory. Their places
will he taken by bloodless machines
that never whinny greetings to a kind
master, never search one’s pockets for
sugar—and never break their legs on
icy pavements or drag out a friendless
old age under the whips of stupid,
greedy drivers.
When one thinks of these last con
siderations the horseless age doesn't
seem so gloomy a prophecy But if
man is wise there will be no horseless
age.
If man has any real wisdom—and
that belief, though ofteu disappointed,
never dies—tlie horse will tie promoted
to the position of humanity's chief pet
and plaything, but always with a sub
stratum of usefulness which will keep
him from degenerating into a mere toy
The draft horse, the trotter—even the
"general purpose animal”—may go. bui
the saddle horse ought to stay and
thrive. Just us a medical prescription
he is well worth while, for the old Hug
lish phrase that “the outside of a horse
is the best thing l'or the insides of a
man” still bolds true, and us an in
structor of youth and a means of real
contact with nature lie has no rival but
the dog.—Cleveland I’lniu Dealer
Ha Could Wield an Ax.
The skill of the old Maine shipbuild
ers in the use of the adz and broadax
was wonderful. One old. time yarn is
ol' a carpenter who applied very drunk
at a shipyard for employment, in ei
der to have a little fun with him the
foreman set him to give a proof of his
skill by bowing out a wooden holt with
no chopping block but a stone. The
carpenter* accomplished his difficult
task without marring the keen edge of
the broadax and showed the foreman
a neatly made bolt. Then he brought
the ax dowu with a territie blow that
shattered its edge upon the stone ”1
can hew fust rate on your chopping
block.” he hiccoughed, “hut I'll be
blamed if 1 can make the ax stiek in
It when I git through." The story runs
that the foreman lost no time in em
ploying such a workman.
Judges’ Wigs.
The wig is only worn by English bar
risters to give them a stern, judicial
appearance, and no one can say that
it fails in this respect. The -custom
was originated by a French judge in
the seventeenth century when, happen
ing to don a marquis’ wig one day. he
found it gave him such a stern and
dignified- appearance that he decided to
get one for himself and wear it at ail
times in court. This he did. and the
result was so satisfactory from a legal
I>oiut of view that not ouly judges, but
barristers also, took up the custom
throughout Europe.—London Graphic.
Warship Pennants.
Tile commission pennant on United
States war vessels goes, up when the
vessel is placed in commission and is
down continually while she remains so.
The Jackies have many pet supersti
tions based ou the way this bunting
behaves*
It 8ure Is.
Patience—Do you ever look beck
over the past?
Patrice—Why. bless yonr heart!
That's the only way one can look at
:be past"—Yonkers Statesman.
Disguised.
Customer—I’m going to a masked
ball, and I want something that will
completely disguise me. Costumer—
Certainly, sir. 1 will give yon some
thing nice.—Pele Mele.
Exercise is the chler source of im
provement In ell our faculties.—Blair.
CITY EXPRESS
MEETS Alili BOATS AND NEVER MISSES A TRAIN
Auto for HIr e Day or Night.
Buy and Sell Anything.
Phone 82 J. A. SPENAKD. Prop.
Jas. E. Wilson, Freighter
Large or Small Deliveries Made
To Any Part of the Country.
PROMPT SERVICE GUARANTEED VALDEZ, ALASKA
UPPER T0NS1NA ROAD HOUSE
Best of Meals—Prices Reasonable
GENERAL STORE. - TRADING POST.
Telephone connects with Chitina.
General Freighting. KNUTE Nafsted Mur.
MERCHANT’S CAFE
FRESH BREAD AND PASTRY DAILY
Phone (13 (’has. Fischer. Propr.
VALDEZ REAL ESTATE AGENCY
Real Estate, Insurance, General Brokerage
Absentees Business Properly Handled
Treat Building, Alaska Ave. Telephone No. 60
Mead’s Sheet Metal Works
PIXMBING, STEAM AND HOT WATER HEATING.
Sheet Metal Work, Mine Air Pipe, I»ij e and Fittings, Valves, Etc.
Motor Boat Supplies, Paints and Oils.
Ix>cated on Valdez Dock, Opposite Prospector Office. Phone
Pacific Alaska Navigation Co.
PUGET SOUND PUGET SOUND
California Alaska
ALASKA
Steamers sail from Seattle at 9 P. M. on
5th, 15th, 25th—EVERY MONTH
Steamer Sailing 13th enlla lilumna and Kodiak—All Sailing call at Knik
and Anolioruge.
CALIFORNIA
Seattle to San Francisco every Wednesday and Sunday, connection uitli
Steamer* Vale and Harvard for Southern California.
Right reserved to change schedule without notice
RICHARD J. RIXGYVOOD, Mgr.. Seattle; VALDKZ DOCK CO., Local A«t.
ALASKA
STEAMSHIP CO.
8. 8. ALAMEDA AND 8. 8. NORTHWESTERN SAIL FROM SE
ATTLE THE 10TH, 20TH AND 30TH,
EVERY MONTH
FROM VALDEZ SOUTH—8TII, I8TH, 28TH, FOR CORDOVA,
JUNEAU, WRANGEL, KETCHIKAN AND SEATTLE.
Regular freight service for Ketchikan, Wrangell, Juneau, Sheep
Creek, Treadwell, Douglas, Skagway, Cordova, Kllamar, Valdez and La
touche. Explosives, S. S. Seward, on the 5'h; Latouche, on the 15th; S. S.
Cordova, 25th of each month-—right reserved to change this schedule
without notice.
K. D. TRACY, Geo’t Agent VALDEZ DOCK CO.. Local Agent.
When You Leave
For the Outside
take the
“MILWAUKEE”
One road—one management—one service all the way
through to Chicago. It’s the Short Line to the East
over
THE NEW STEEL TRAIL
For information and literature write or ask|
J. C. MARTIN, Agent, Valdez, Alaska.
CHICAGO, MILWAUKEE & ST. PAUL RY.
A. E. HARRIS,'Freight and Passenger Agt,
Juneau, Alaska.