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Letter from Abe Spring to Jack London, dated April 22, 1911

Letter from Abe Spring to Jack London, dated April 22, 1911.

ABE SPRING
ATTORNEY AT LAW
jack lohdoh:-
I13AI. TTR:-
W 7%
FAIRBANKS. ALASKA
:_3. ««th, ii.
'Chat " -Burning naylight " does not, pretend, to "be a correct
history of the Interior of Alaska, 1 an wen aware, and, consequently 1 nay be
entirely In the '/rong in writing to you to draw your attention to an error
no oggregious, t.o make me doubt, whether you, who knos the N'orth so well,
could have possibly written it.
on page 7'^, you say, " ~>y "ay tenth, the lee of the Stewart, with a great
rending and snapoing, tore loose fron the barks and ro^e three feet. Rut it did
not go'down atreara, The lower Yukon, up to where the Stewart flows in to it,
must first break and move on, Ui'tl.'l than the lee of th« Stewart could only
ri?u» higher and higher on the increasing flood. beneath. "Hien the Yukon would
break was problematical. m,*o thousand miles away It flowed into the Boring f?ea
and it was the Ice conditions of the Bering Sea that would determine could rid
itself of the millions of tone o+* Tee that cluttered its breast. "
Now you, su ely know better than that. You know that it requires n groat
deal more hnat, and a greater volume o"* water to move the lee in the nighty
Yukon than "or the smaller streams. The facts are that all of the smaller stream
are entirely out of lee nnd used by tie miners <'or boating mid fishing and in
some i-tstancen by the small steamers for navigation before the lee in Yukon
moves. The Yukon itself l« being navigated annual!" for nearly a month before
the mouth thereof breaks sufficiently so to XKXK7.73MXXX permit the river
Steamers from St, I'ieheals to go up the river.
Tl e Yukon river begins to break at the foot of Le Barge, between the
fifth and tenth of May and keeps breaking downwards, at the rate f about one
hundrerd wiles every twenty four hours untlii towards that last of !?ay the river
is 0]>er. and fr^.^ of all ice from the lakes to the moThfch.
River Steamers laden with fresh supplies, especially fruits,vegetables and
perishables, leave the foot of j,e Barge by the fifteenth of gay and get here
by the last of gay, while navigation from the mouth of the river does not open
until! late in June nnd sometimes not even untill early in July.
Only a GheeehaXo thinks that the [ce of the rivers goes out to the Sea. A
Northerner like yourself, lenowe that all rivers form deltas ah their mouths and
there the Ice melts and rots.
R.5SP/3CTPUIJjY YOURS
ARM RPRINQ.

The original of this item is located at Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections and Archives, COLL MSS 10 Box 9 Folder 3.

1911-04-22

Reproduction for publication, exhibition, web display or commercial use is only permissible with the consent of the USU Libraries Manuscript Curator, phone (435) 797-0891.

Jack and Charmian London Correspondence and Papers, 1894-1953

For more information about this collection, please see the finding aid at : http://uda-db.orbiscascade.org/findaid/ark:/80444/xv27206

Jack London Digital Collection

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