The herald., 1897-09-02

I ly apparent that when II comes to Eng
lish possessions the Englishman is thor
oughly up to date. He knows all about
Alaska, and how England "ought to
have had it" instead of Uncle Sam, and
lis thoroughly familiar with the climatic
condition of that portion of British Co.
| lumbia which contains the Klondyke.
quote from a London paper, the state
ments given being those made by a cor
respondent who signs himself Sub
scriber:"
The gold bearing alluvial deposits lie
in the basin of the Yukon river. 1t is a
mighty stream, 5000 miles long, at least.
| Eighteen hundred miles from its mouth
its turbid waters are swollen by those
| Of the Klondyke, and it is precisely at
| the juncture of the two streams that the
| richest finds have been made. Until re-
Gently the only dwellers in the district
were rowing bands of Flathead Indians,
a few Esqumaux and halfbreeds, and
perhaps twenty score of white pros
pectors and trappers.
To-day we hear of hotels and banks,
ltelegraphs and telephones, newspaper
offices and theaters. Only most, if not all,
of these edifices are like those other
Eden. immortalized by Dickens in Mar
tin Chuzzlewit; they exist but in the
imagination of the land agent and the
steamship company's tout. The ground
is frozen hard until the middle of June.
The winter ice begins to form early in
September. In midwinter the sun dis
appears altogether. These be stubborn
facts, and ought to convince the most
I,1-- XIo,,
no child's play.
But say the gold seekers, 1t is
placer mining and think they have an
swered the croakers. And so they have
lin way. For placer mining is of all
forms of gold hunting the most exciting,
and, provided luck to be with the seeker,
the most remunerative. A man may go
out to work one morning, hit on a rich
pocket and wash out by dinner time
enough gold to keep him in comfort for
the remainder of his natural life.
"In the early days of the Californian
and Australian placer mining men
have been known to earn 100000 and
G30,0 900 in a single week. In the sum-
mer of 1S49, within half dozen miles of
where San Francisco now stands, two
men named Ayres and Thomassen un-
earthed in the space of three hours thir-
teen nuggets of nearly pure gold. aggre-
eating $50 pounds weight troy. AT Bal
larat, in the summer of 1857, new
chum stumbled across a nugget weigh
ing 146 pounds avoirdupos 1t is stories
such as these that spur on the Klondyke
gold seeker. 1t is all gamble, and the
gamblers in most instances stake their
lives.
"'But why all the hurry?' asks the
uninitiated in surprise. Why not wait
until the country has been opened up
Bit trails cut over the mountains and
the initial roughness of camp life in the
wilderness toned down.? All, there's the
rub Placer mining cannot in the very
mature of things, last for long. Pay
gravel is very soon exhausted and bed
rock reached Then commences the era
of scientific mining of the capitalist; of
expensive crushing and separating ma
chinery; of true fissure veins; of high
and low grade ores; of shafts sunk at
incredible cost in money and labor deep
down through the virgin rock
"All of which tends, necessarily and
inevitably, TO the extinction of the placer
miner, with his slouch hat, red shirt.
jack boots and his belt filled with gold
dust. Therefore, this unprecedented
rush to the banks of the Yukon to share
in the glories of a boom that must neces-
sarily be as brief as up to now it has been
brilliant
! What sort of a prophet this corre-
spondent will prove of course no one
knows, but l. from my own experien &c
in various parts of the world in mining
camps, am inclined to think that he
knows whereof he writes. In any event.
his view of the case is worth consider
ing.
The most intelligent feature of the at
!. titude of the British public in the natter
of the Klondyke, however, is their real
ization of the necessity of providing
means Of existence and of gaining a
knowledge of detail as to what they will
be forced to endure before they set out
for this new El Dorado. 1 have seen
nothing in the way of Klondyke infor-
nation in the papers Of the United
! States more cogent and logical than the
following l quote from one of the lead
ing newspapers of England:
Readers in this country have already
been led to wonder, from the accounts
J flashed over the cable from the other
| l.
age to exist in the new Ell Dorado dur
ing the coming winter. So far as a res
7 dence is concerned, there need be lit
tie difficulty. In few hours couple
. of men can easily run up a shanty. of
. pine logs, or scrape what is technically
known as 'dug-out,' which is nothir G
{ more pretentious than hole in the side
. of some hill, with few bushes in from,
for door and hole at the side to assis
the departure Of the smoke.
, $50 far as provisions go, the govern.
ment is making every effort to ship sun.
| plies up the coast from Victoria. which
: it must be remembered, is one of the
great shipping ports of the Pacific. Ther
there are always numbers of enterpris.
! ing individuals, who suddenly appeu,
upon the scene Of mining camp wifi
a load of provisions, for which they ma
turally demand and obtain a most ex
: orbitant figure. Moreover, the winter ir
northern Canada comes on with awfu
, suddenness. and this year must ipeyita.
bly, catch hundreds from the warm soutt
: totally unprepared. Gold will Civ,
nearly everything to a man when he il
= in civilization, but it will avail him littl,
In the great northwest when the sur