Our Government will soon have an opportunity of testing the value of the
reindeer which have been imported into Alaska.

A number of whaling-vessels are fast in the ice off the coast of Alaska,
and it is necessary to send food to the sailors on them to save them
from starvation.

These ships went up through the Bering Sea this summer to ply their
dangerous trade as usual. The winter set in earlier than usual, and
eight of them have been caught in the ice off Point Barrow, which is on
the north of Alaska, jutting out into the Arctic Ocean.

There are about two hundred and seventy-five men on these vessels. Not
expecting to spend the winter in the Arctic Ocean, they were not
prepared for such an emergency, and none of them carried more than a
three-months' supply of food. The gravest fears are entertained lest
they die of starvation.

The matter was brought to the attention of the President, who
immediately called a Cabinet council, at which it was decided to send a
relief expedition to these men.

The plan is to charter a steam-whaler, the _Thrasher_, which is now at
San Francisco, and send her with provisions and clothing to Port
Clarence, which you will find marked just below Cape Prince of Wales,
the most easterly point of our continent, which bounds the Bering
Straits on the American side.

If it is impossible to get so far north as this, it is proposed to put
in at Norton Sound, on which St. Michaels is situated, the port which