The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1897-08-03

this camp is Mitchell but all old Yu-
kon miners know it as Camp Forty Mile.
AT the time of Phil Ryder's visit it con-
tanned nearly two hundred log cabins,
two stores, including the one that he
established in the name of his friend
Gerald Hamer. two saloons, both of
which We're closed for the season, and a
small cigar factory. Although the Win
ter population was only about three
hundred, in summer time it is much
larger, as many Of the miners come out
in the fall and return before the 18th
of June, at which date, according to Yu-
kon mining law, every man owning a
claim must be on the ground, or it may
be jumped
Forty Mile is what is known as a
placer camp, which means that its gold
is found in minute particles or dust in
soft earth, from which it can be wash
ed in sluices or rockers. Into one of
these a stream of water is turned that
sweeps away all the dirt and gravel,
allowing the heavier gold to sink to the
bottom, where it is caught and held by
cross bars or rifles
Although gold has been discovered
at many points along the Yukon and its
branches, the deposit at Forty Mile is
the richest yet worked, and has paid as
high as three hundred dollars to man
for a single days labor Twelve thOus-
and dollars worth of gold was cleared by
one miner in a three months season, and
a fve-hundred dollar nugget has been
found; but most of the miners are con-
tent if they can make ounce wages, or
sixteen dollars per day. while the aver
age for the camp is not over eight dol
lars per day during the short season of
that Arctic region.
''Sluices can only be worked during
three or four months of summer time;
then come the terrible eight or nine
months of winter, when the mercury
thinks nothing of dropping to 60 or 20
degrees below zero, and the whole world
seems made of ice. Strange as it may
appear, the summer weather Of this re-
gion is very hot, s. degrees in the shade
and 112 degrees in the sun being fire.
quently reached by the mercury. Dur
ing the summer months, too, the entire
Yukon Valley is as terribly infested with
mosquitoes as is any mangrove swamp
of the tropics. Thus the hardy miner
who penetrates it in his search for gold
Is Dldue 10 suffer lIOIll Olt CdQSG VI oil
other during every month Of the year.
In spite of the summer heat, the
ground never thaWs to a depth of more
than five or six feet. below which it is
solidly frozen beyond any point yet
reached by digging. Under the dense
covering of moss, sixteen to eighteen
inches thick, by which the greater part
of Alaska is overspread, it does not thaw
more than few inches. Consequently
the most important item of a Yukon
miners winter work is the stripping of
this moss from his claim in order that
next summers sun may have chance
to thaw 1t to working depth.
There were no women or children at
Forty Mile, and there We're very few
amusements, but there is plenty of hard
work in both summer, when the sun
hardly sets at all, and in the winter
when he barely shows his face above the
southern horizon. Besides the laborious
task of moss-stripping, the miner must
saw out by hand all lumber for sluices
and rockers. He must build his own
cabin and fashion its rude furniture