The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1897-09-29

to shorten IL where it was to be carried
on to any extent.
The first step in advance in placer
mining is the use of the ''rocker. Z"
The rocker looks like one of the old
cradles we find once in while in the
attic of some old house up in the coun-
try. 1t is box about three feet long
and two feet wide, placed on rockers
just like cradle. A part of the box
is covered with piece of heavy sheet
iron, placed few inches below the
top and punched full of holes about q
quarter Of an inch in diameter. The
bottom Of the rest of the box slants
towards the lower end and is covered
with piece of wooden blanket. To-
wards the end of the box stats are
placed across, with mercury behind
them, to catch what gold gets by
above.
The miner sets up his rocker near
the stream and piles his gravel on the
the sheet iron, keeping it wet all the
while and keeping the rocker in motion.
The fine gold and sand sift through to
the blanket, while nuggets of any size
remain on the iron. The finer gold
settles on the blanket and the dust is
caught by the mercury behind the
Stats. The blankets frequently rinsed
in barrel of water with mercury at the
bottom, and this mercury, together
with that behind the Stats, is "roasted"
as in the other method.
But even this method is not used
when "sluicing" is possible, as it is
when the stream has sufficient fall. In
sluicing number of long boxes are
made which fit into each other like n
stovepipe. o. Across these boxes Stats
are placed with mercury behind them,
or sometimes the bottoms are bored full
of holes and mercury placed under
meath. A long line of these boxes is
placed at considerable slant and the
miner shovels his gravel in at the up
per end, let's the water run down the
sluice and the gold, if in nuggets, sinks
and is held by the Stats, or, il fine, is
caught by the mercury. Three times
as much gold can be washed out in
this way as by rocker, because three
times as much dirt can be washed.
And after the boxes are all done with
they are burned and the ashes washed
for the gold held by the wood.
These are the various methods of
placer mining and thus they are prac-
tised in the Klondike region, hampered
only by the natural conditions Of the
country. Let us now look for mo-
ment at what these conditions compel
the Klondike miner to do.
Let us suppose the gold-hunter has
passed through the difficult journey
and arrived at the gold fields. He first
goes out and prospects until he finds
claim where the "colors" in his pan
encourage him to locate. If he should
happen TO be early on new field he
would probably stake out claim next
to one that was already paying in the
hope that his would pay, too. A
Klondike claim is supposed to be laid
out 500 feet long parallel with the
general direction of the creek, and
666 feet crosswise, the idea being to
give each location the width of the
gravel from rim rock to rim rock.
Most of the creeks up there have a
slight fall with wide bottoms. Bed
rock is anywhere from four to twenty
feet below the surface and pay dirt is
apt to extend clear down to bedrock.
OF course, the great difficulty that
the miner has to contend with is the
fact that the ground is frozen solid
about all the year, and even in summer