The San Francisco call., 1897-07-18
HOW TO REAtH The MINES.

The Several Routes aud difficulties Con-
fronting the Irareier
The valley of the Klondyke has within
two days become the golden wonder of
the age. No other tale of golden gravel
has ever given world the Mysteries with
so wondrous a showing of real gold 20
confound the scoffers.
Two days ago little steam boat arrived
from a jumping-off place of this cold
world with 81, 100000 or thereabouts in
grains of virgin gold, and yesterday the
second steamer 10 come from the new Ell
Dorado brought over a ton of gold worth
about $780, O0O And millions more have
been taken out and millions remain 10
the many who shall lose and the few who
shall win.
1t is not only wonderful field of gold,
surprising all that man has found, that
has been uncovered, for the human in
terest OF it all is the biggest thing to the
vast majority of people, who will only
read about the gold of the Yukon, and
with the finding comes new, romantic
phase of human effort. The Yukon
promises to rival the days of 40 IN the
picturesqueness and romance OF human
life, when it is connected with The thing
that can most deeply stir the springs of
the human heart.
This new crusade for gold reaches to the
Arctic circle. The adventurous ergonauts,
who have won the gold that comes to the
mints on two early steamboats,, and the
thousands of others who have gone to the
new fields, have faced risks. dangers and
privations that rival those of the argo-
nauts of California, though the scene OF
trouble is wholly different.
The '49' ers made a heroic age in Ameri-
can history. Their journeys overland
through deserts and past warning Indians,
and by the isthmus and the Horn have
provided romantic tales enough to last
for generations, as did their life on the
Sierra slopes. The Fraser River excite
ment and the Australian rush that early
followed the discovery at Coloma were but
part of the California fever at the time,
and but reflected its characteristics. No
where in the world-in Siberia, South
Africa, South America or elsewhere-has
q gold discovery given the world some
thing wholly and genuinely new until the
SURPRISING richness OF frigid slope of the
American continent was revealed.
From the early reports that are at hand
the Klondyke pacers appear to be the
richest that nature has ever revealed. In
the early sos he California placers yielded
as high as $S5, ,000, 900 year. Be ide these
figures the Alaska production pales into
insignifcance, but the California placers
were spread over an immensely greater
territory. The comparative point is that
while the early Californian placers
displayed rich bars and pockeIs here and
there, yielding fortunes to individual
claims, there never was found in this
State narrow vallev as long as fourteen
miles in which the main watercourse and
its little tributaries proved as uniformly
rich as has the little valley of the Klon-
dyke.
For five or six years the auriferous val
leys OF other tributaries of the Upper
Yukon have been worked BY hundreds of
adventurous miners with just fair suc-
cess. the fairly rich gravel which is found
in plenty yielding but little more than
expenses and grub stakes in that ex PEN
sive country. Most of this placer mining
in the Yukon country has heretofore been
done near the Yukon, just after it crosses