The San Francisco call., 1897-07-23
NUGGETS AND
THE SHADOW
OF FAMINE
More Lucky Ones Bring
Sacks and Stories Of
Gold.
ALL REPEAT A WARNING TO
RUSHING FOOLS.
There Is Haunting Fear That the Growing
Rush of Fortune-Seekers Will
Proportion Misery to
the Gold.

! both claims IA and "a on Bonanza Greek
above the discovery.
"On claim II we sunk four shafts ard
driftej from all of them. This claim lies
across the gulch 500 feet wide the way the
creek runs and runs from rim to rim to a
limit OF 666 feet Our four shafts were in
line on the lower side of the claim and
| covered distance of 130 feet. We drifted
"a feet up the claim, drifting out ali of a
section of the claim $50 feet one way and
"a feet the other. We took out about
$4,000. That would make an average of
$1,000 TO the foot across the 130 feet, and at
this rate the 500 feet would yield 81, 600, 600.
This is not counting anything that is on
the sides of the middle section we are
working.
The ground is different in different
claims, of course. In this claim there are
16 to Is feet of black m uck, then to 4 of
gravel and then the bedrock The gravel
runs so cents to 81 and 81 to the pan, but
we didn't figure on the gravel. The rich
part Is the bedrock. It's slaty rock that
was all cracked and broken up as it lay
some time in the past when il was at the
surface and there was freezing and thaw-
ing.
''The cracks and crevices are filed with
a clayey sort of sediment, and it's in this
stuff in the crevices that the most gold is
| found. We pick out the broken rock and
! put it on the dumps to be sluiced, and
scrape up the loose stuff from between the
rocks. OF course great deal of gold sticks
! to the rocks, but it is not in the rock il
SELF The most gold is within two or three
inches of the top surface of the bedrock,
but it goes down four or five feet often.
When L left l hired Mack LauvreviIle
to take my place for $400 month, and he
and my partner will work ahead until
| 60 back in the spring.
81 couldn't estimate how much was
taken out this year, or how much will be
taken out next year. 1t will be a great deal
more next year, because work was gener-
ally started so late this last season. We,
for instance, didn't begin until February
| Our ground is so we can drift in summer,
but generally they can begin digging in
! October and November, and they will
work several hundred claims every day
possible.
81 couldn't guess how many men there
is work for either. On El Dorado there
are forty claims that will run fifteen men
each, and that's 800, and there is Bonanza
and the other creeks, There are good
many claims that it won't pay to work
with labor at $15 day. If too many
people get in wages will 60 down and
more claims will be worked. E Dorado
and Bonanza will pay rich for iour miles
without blank"
All this is the sunny side of claim II
and the Yukon gold. Mr.. Picotte isn't
worrying himself about the wild rush,
but he casts shadow of wisdom on the
situation, as do all the lucky ones who
have flashed this gold on the world and
given forth the story. Here are some of
his quiet remarks:
| MANY men who have been there years
have got nothing yet"
"Men are going to get caught there this
winter and they can't get out OF the coun-
try. There won't be provisions enough"
EVERY man that goes in should take
a years supply"
Wages will go down."
There seems to be little show for 9
man on the Kondyke unless he can buy
something. Everything is taken up"
Mr.. Picotte thinks that there are other
diggings to be found, and says that pretty
good claims along the Birch Creek and
elsewhere, that were abandoned in the
rush, can be bought for a song. But
these provide just modest rewards for
| toll.
"This rush is going to hurt the country
and those who go in he said. 1T is
true the new diggings are rich, but if
there is more men than there is room
for, wages Will go down and every body
will suffer. It's big country. but few
creeks have developed pay. More may
be found. mans first year Is apt to be
lost, learning the country and what to
do. He should go prepared to stay"
Mr.. Picotte discredits the big stories OF
what some men have brought out recently.
"Cash" Amcher, more properly Casper
Cassius Amcher, was born in Switzerland,
and made $1,000 on the Klondyke.
He earned it, and no man who went
through that Forty-mie famine in the
fall of 1889 should be bsgrudged measly
$1,000 from the Klondyke bank. He was
asked how it seemed to get back to the
world after nine years on the Yukon.
1T makes me feel young again, he re-
piled.
He pulled yellow thing of hap
hazard shape out of pocket as be sat in
the lobby of the Commercial Hotel, and
people thought it was from Bonanza
Creek, but it wasn't. 1t was the first mug
get he found in Alaska. and he carried it