The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1898-10-23
GREAT WEALTH
FOUND IN ONE
SMALL CLAIM
Dick Lows Phenom-
email Luck.
FORTUNE IN AN ODD FRACTION
FROM A LITTLE STRIP OF LAND
1925, 900 TAKEN.
One Place on the Klondike Where as
High as Ten Thousand Dollars
Is Yielded to the
Pan.
FORTUNE IN AN ODD FRACTION
FROM A LITTLE STRIP OF LAND
1926, 900 TAKEN.
BY HAL HOFFMAN.
Special Correspondence Of The Call

JUNEAU, Alaska, Oct. PA better
illustration Of the exceeding and in
comparable richness of some of the
Klondike ground can hardly be found
than a small fractional claim held by
Richard Low, who plowed up through
the swiftly running slush ice in the
river and is now here. Low left here
for the Yukon Valley about four years
ago. He was down the river around
about Forty Mile. He was little slow
in getting TO Dawson, but pitched his
tent there in time to get a job assist
ing William Ogilvie survey Bonanza,
FL Dorado and other creeks. At the
head of Bonanza Creek it was discov-
cred that a Swede had staked too
much ground. There was eighty-six
feet over and above the legal 500-foot
claim. Low located the fraction and
fastened back to Dawson and recorded
1t. The claim is between Nos. and 4
above Discovery-Just an even eighty
six feet up and down the creek bed.
The discovery and location of this
fraction is, in proportion to the extent
of ground, the greatest piece of luck
on the KIondike.
Dick Low has taken out Of that frac-
ton to date about 1925 900 worth of gold
nearly a quarter of a million dollars.
The pay streak so far worked is about
six feet wide and from one to one and
a half feet deep. The 1925, 900 is, in
reality, what Low has all to himself,
for in addition to that he paid his fore
man, Joe Irving, $50 a day and at the
end of the season presented him with
$1,000 in a lump. Joe is a crackerjack
miner and a mechanic, too. When asked
why he gave Irving the extra $1,000 Low
said: He's worth it to me and de-
served it."
This output from so small a piece of
ground is disCompOser here A quar-
ter OF million dollars shoVeled out of
the ground in less than half the length
of city lot! And the pay streak is not
worked out yet! The remainder of the
ground has not been touched and 1t also
contains gold-hOw rich is not known
but certainly in paying quantities. Low
told an old friend here that if it had
not been for the royalty of 10 per cent
exacted by the Canadian Government
. on the output of the claims he could
from selected ground in the pay streak,
have astonished Dawson and shocked
all the people Of the earth with a pan
of dirt. The ground frequently yielded
from $500 to $500 to the pan-a shovel
full being the general estimate of
pan. This is approaching the very diff
ficult in estimating whether there is
actually more gold or gravel in a spade
full. In one place Low says he believes
he could have taken out between $4,000
and $4,000 to the single pan! In this
there would be about nine-tenths solid
gold and one-tenth dirt-about as much
weight as an able-bodied miner cares
to handle on a shovel
Miners are a peculiar people. They
are true to the core to each other as a
rule. This is to a great extent neces-
sity-an unwritten law, for usually
there are neither attorneys, courts nor
legal facilities at hand to bind bargains
A miner who once goes back on his
partner finds it wellnigh impossible to
get another one. Low has other valu-
able ground on Bonanza and FL Dorado.
When he left Dawson to get in touch
with coast civilization for a short spell
of attorney to do as he pleases with the
claims while he is absent. In no other
class, kind or color of men can such
confidence be found.
Richard Low has been a miner around
the coast of Alaska, spending his win
tiers in Juneau. for ten years. He was
a poor man. Once he dealt faro here
for wages. He extends the glad hand"
to everybody and. of course, everybody
now has the glad hand" for Dick He
places a good deal of sea room between
him and a faro layout these days and
has dreams, 1t is said, of an easy chair
and domestic felicity. Dick claims that
many man CANDLES simply because he
is down on his luck in other ways.