I am advised," continued the member from New York, "by those who are competent to judge of that subject, that the man is totally ignorant, that he knows nothing about the diseases of horses' feet, and that he rather perpetrates injury upon the poor animals than produces any benefit to them."

Fernando Wood in his air and demeanor, was one of the most dignified and impressive members of the House. He was careful, scrupulous in his dress; and as to his "deportment," Mr. Turvey drop would have contemplated him with entire approval. For such a personage to rise in his place, and in a measured, serene manner, discourse thus upon a subject of which no man on the floor knew anything whatever, could not fail to produce some effect. Mr. Blaine could only say that he had never heard the name of Alexander Dunbar before; but that he thought the amendment cast a severe reflection upon the Secretary of War. Mr. Wood insisting, the amendment was finally

amended so as to make the exclusion apply to the whole appropriation bill, and thus cut off the unknown Dunbar entirely; and in this form, it passed the Committee of the Whole, and was prepared for submission to the House.

It developed afterward that Wood was leading a lobby for another scheme with which this interfered. It was a patent horse-shoe that some one was interested in having adopted by the Government.

Notwithstanding Mr. Wood's adroitness the Dunbar lobby arose in their might, and by the employment of various expedients, had their measure championed to such good purpose that it was carried, and the appropriation clause in the army bill restored, by which he received the $25,000 for his system.

The lobby which is to be feared is that which sends members to Congress, which has millions of acres and dollars at command and is engaged in schemes dear to the pride and important to the interests of the nation.

HE Wild Goose Railroad was completed in September, 1900. It is a narrow gauge, and extends from the city of Nome to the mouth of Anvil Creek, a distance of about five miles. Passengers are charged one dollar each way, and the train runs every two hours.

It is a delightful trip to take the open coach at the station right under the shadow of Lane's derrick, to hear the engine puff and blow, to see the passengers mount the high platform, sitting in two long rows on the flat car, and to hear the conductor say "All aboard," and the start is made. It isn't the "flyer" on the

A derrick on the sandspit.

New York Central-oh, no! The first railroad train that was ever run made the speed of four miles an hour. The experiment was successful, and the rate of speed was soon increased. The Wild Goose Railroad was an experiment; it is still in the experimental stage, and the rate of speed is five miles an hour, witn no increase. But the Wild Goose Railroad is a great railroad, and the only one in Arctic Alaska.

The station is built very near the beach. The track is laid along the bend and across Snake River, on a trestle-way which shakes and trembles when foot passengers cross-but what of that? The bridge is all right-entirely satisfactory; then the track leads on up the brow f the hill, where one can get the best view of Nome and her harbor. At least one summit of the hill, and we have a landscape far exceeding in beauty anything the traveler is accustomed to see. First, it is unique-no trees, no green growing foliage-but still there is a sympathy of color. The dark, low level tundra and soft and mushy bits of very dark green here and there-a light brown shreds in -it is the last year's dry stems and moss, and the practical eye can discern tints of purple and pink, and the most delicate outcroppings of tiny, delicate green,

and all this one carpet of exquisite design in color stretching to the hills in the distance five and ten miles away. Behind us, the city of Nome, scattered along the curved beach for four milesthe sea serene and magnificent, bearing on her bosom the freight of an hundred ocean craft. Think of the tundra over which the train passes! Have you ever walked on low, marshy ground-perhaps the swamps of the middle States-very common in portions of the Mississippi Valley? If you have, you have stepped from bog to bog, each one like a sponge pushed down into the water at every step. This is the tundra-a low, wet, level tract, which sinks down with the least weight. Here upon the trail men "mush" all day long, carrying forty, fifty, and sixty pound packs to the camp of his "Eldorado."

It is across this tundra that the Wild Goose Railroad is laid, and where the weary miner can lay down the bulky burden upon the platform of the car, and take the ride either way-a service he

Taking ore from discovery on Anvil.

well knows how to appreciate. If the train is slow, never mind-no one cares; the air is from over the sea, the summer sun lifts the mist; the prospector, the capitalist, the sightseer, the out-of-town visitor, are all one happy crowd, one caste, one company, one in sympathy with humanity, on the tundra of the common country of farthest Alaska.

The mud and water were up to the hub, and the first thing I saw as we

reached the Anvil station was a fourhorse team, heavily loaded, stuck in tne tundra.

The mining force was at work at the left of the station, and we picked our way carefully this way and that to get down where the work was going on. It was the next day after the $355 nugget was found. There was a rebound everywhere, and considerable interest to see how the spot looked. Perhaps seventyfive men were shoveling into the sluice boxes and seven or eight teams hitched to scrapers and placing the dirt where it could be more easily reached by the force.

I desired to get a picture of a fourhorse team. The driver wouldn't stop. The foreman, who was standing across the gulch ten or fifteen rods away, called to the driver, "Slow up there; she wants to take a picture-don't you see?" The driver halted, and the little picture is greatly admired, owing to the reflection in the water. I waved the good foreman thanks for his kind courtesy, and coming back to the station, paused a moment to decide what cut to take to reach the beautiful, sloping hills. While I waited I heard a fine male voice singing somewhere "The Holy City." The expression

was exceptionally fine, wholly unconscious of a listener-very sweet and very striking. The incongruity was impressive. It is one of the pathetic features of the life so far removed from the surroundings to which men are accustomed that when least expected, without the kindred association and in the absence of familiar home environment, the observer sees or hears "one touch of nature" that mellows the heart and as truly indicates the longings for the good, the true and the sacred things learned at mother's knee beyond the roll and swell of tide and sea.