The advocate., 1897-09-22

not enough. had about twenty pounds
OF rice, however, and thirty-six pounds
OF beans. The beans carried me
through. cooked the last mess OF them
the day the supplies came. Provisions
ran short with 500 men to eat them
What do you suppose will happen with
10000 men on the ground and more en-
route? Starvation, you say. That Is 1t
exactly.
IT made my first trip into the interior
OF Alaska in 1894. In those days there
was not much gulch mining in Alaska.
The men were all washing on the Yukon
sand-bars. The sand was very rich,
and men with cradles were running
from $50 to $100 day. The gold is
still In the bars plenty Of 1t. One of the
most profitable things a man could do
would be to take a dredge boat to the
Yukon and mine the shallOwer parts Of
it. There are hundreds Of bars in the
river that would yield millions of dol
lars. A good dredge boat will take out
about 1000 cubic yards day and the
sand will run So to the yard right along.
This dirt holds cents pan Of recover
able gold, and there are 140 pans in
yard. This will be done some day. At
present everything runs to gulch min
ing. Dirt that men would fight for in
California they will not touch in Alaska.
Up there $50 day to the shovel is held
to be fair average, but there are many
places on the KlOndike where dirt runs
5000 day to the shovel.
"The yield from the KlOndike next
season will be 100 tons of gold, which
nearly equals the worlds production in
1896. This mass Of metal will be worth
in round numbers $4,000, 900. The num-
ber Of strikes in the future can be pre-
dlcted only from the number in the past.
In Franklin Gulch, tributary of the
Forty Mile river, we used to pick up
nuggets worth from $40 to $500. Miller
creek has produced thousands. Glacier
creek, discovered in 1894, has made
handsome returns. Birch creek, near
Circle City, has done the same. There
are dozens of fabulously rich localities
whose names the people have never
heard.
"As for room, there is more than pros
pectors know what to do with. Start
ing from Dawson City, in two hours
never stood before. Alaska will not be
Thoroughly prOspected within the life
time Of any man who draws breath. That
makes the idiocy of this autumn's rush
all the more inexcusable. Nothing will
be lost by anyone who delays starting
until next spring. That man will stand
an excellent chance to make fortune
who leaves Chicago five years from now.
The hardships Of the journey under
present conditions and the hardships Of
the life there have not been in any way
exaggerated 1t is no place for the old
or infirm.
"The metal Of Alaska Is Of various
colors. Sometimes the dust Is grayish,
sometimes it is yellow, sometimes it is
nearly black, being mixed with iron and
having become OXidized. The miner
tells 1t by its weight. In case he is in
doubt of the composition Of black mug
get he rubs it on his pan. If gold it will
leave yellow streak. If iron or rock
it will make scratch, and that is all.
Prospecting is simple matter. A
man gets into canoe, with some pro-
visions, and paddles or poles up the
river. He comes to a narrow creek with
precipitOus banks, and thinks it Is likely
looking ground. He lands and gets a
painful of dirt from near the waters
edge. He washes it and will find gold.
This is a certainty, because every stream
in Alaska is gold-bearing In fact, all
Of the land Is auriferous. have spaded
in all parts of it-on top of the hills and
down in the valleys, along the streams
and in the middle of elevated table lands
and l have never failed to find gold.
The question for our prospector to de-