2 - Indians who were paid one silver ruble a day (about 60 cents) for their labor! Ulysses S. Grant, before he became our great Civil War hero, was in this ice-trading picture, too. When a First Lieutenant at Vancouver Barracks on the Colombia River in the winter of 1852-53, Grant and other officers chartered a brig to haul a load of ice to San Francisco, which they cut from local creeks and sloughs and loaded in the brig's hold. Unfortunately, the vessel encountered a near-tropical calm a few days out of Vancouver and by the time she reached San Francisco, the inevitable had happened--all of the ice was melted! The final fantastic chapter in the Alaska-San Francisco ice trade was written in February, when the Klondike Ice- Towing Company offered to tow real live Alaskan icebergs south. They may have been able to float the icebergs but apparently they couldn't float the stock. Prospective investors gave the icebergs a cold shoulder, because no record exists of southbound icebergs in 1898. Since the old ice-trading days San Francisco and Alaska have found many other commercial ventures in common, of course. Alaska today is no longer dependent upon the export of icebergs for its economic well being. Progress in developing its resources, expanding its economy and its population is being made at an accelerated rate, and increasingly in the future Alaska can look to San Francisco as a market for its output and as a source of supply for the things which Alaska needs and which San Francisco produces. The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce will continue its work toward fostering better trade