The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-08-17
THE YUKON GOLD FIELDS.
The Magnitude of the Klondike
Placer Diegings.


''The Klondiloe Mining Region and
ITO the Yukon Gold Fields OF Alaska
are the catching titles to- little folder
published by the oregon Railroad &
Navigation company. with headquar-
tiers at Portland Ore.
The descriptive matter is from tho
graphic pen of Colonel Pat Donan, the
erstwhiie editor Of the Utahnian, the
spicy Utah publication which some
time ago was consolidated with the In
dustrial Reporter Of Denver.
In this little folder Colonel Donan
has given fun sway 10 his powers as a
descriptive writer. and has maintained
his we'll earned reputation in this di-
rection.
Under the title of What and Where
the Klondike Is" the colonel says:
The Klondike is one and a small
one at that-of hundreds of tributaries
Of the great Yukon river of Alaska.
This vast territory, then known as Rus
sian America, was bought from Russia
Dy the United States in 1861, for ST.
1000 It's name of Alaska-meaniug
in the Indian tongue, Great Country
was suggested by Charles Sumner,
and is eminently appropriate. Includ-
ing its outlying islands, it has an area
OF 6ll,10S square miles, or 395. S29. 500
acres-nearly equal to all the United
Mississippi river. and from the St Law
renee 10 the Gulf of eNxico. Since its
purchase by this government, it has
yielded: In furs, $50, 000, 600; canned
salmon, $4,000. GOO: whalebone. SO. O00.-
600; gold about 10000, 900; whale oil.
$4,000 Goldfish. 81. $780, 900. and walrus
ivory, $3.50 006-a grand total of SSS. $780,
ooo, or more than u times the price
paid for ii and its productiveness seems
just beginning. According to semi
othclal estimates. it's gold mines alone
yielded, last year, S4,sT0,000-of which
the famous Treadwell mine, originally
bought for s400. produced $500, 600, pay
ing clear profit of about $500 600
The Yukon, the great river of Alaska,
IS second only to the Amazon among
the rivers of the new world. It is
naviSabie, as one unbrolsen flood, 2040
miles from its mouth TO where the
Lewis and Pelly rivers unite to form
1t. and naVigable for light draft boats
hundreds OF miles further up each of
these first arms At it's mouth il is
about 60 miles wide; and. 1.500 miles
above, it is from eight 10 ten miles in
width 1t drains an empire of nearly
100000 square miles, and discharges
one-third more water into Behring's sea
than the Mississippi does into the Gulf
of Mexico Scores of mighty tributaries,
Ike the Is1noko, KoyukuIf Tanana
rivers, pour their waters into its ma
jestic channel Many of them are
nayigable streams About 1900 miles
above its mouth, the Klondilke a clear,
shallow river, perhaps 200 miles long
and swar1ning with fish, empttes into
It, Along the bed and banks Of this
comparatively Insignificant stream have
recently been discovered the gold
placers that have aroused the world.
Their amazing richness cannot be ex-
agerated. The truth IN regard to them
surpaSses all fiction. And they are but
the beginning. Gold has been found
GA every river and creek that flows into
the Yukon. The great quartz lodges,
esom which all this placer gold comes,
are yet 10 be discovered. Scarcely 1000
square miles out of over 100000 have
been prospected. The worlds greatest
gold mines are probably yet to be
found. The Klondike is but one small
creek in over 1900 miles of gold
bearing waterways.
OF course the route advocated by the
transportation company is via Juneau
and Dyea, and the distances. by taking
this route is as follows:
Miles