Idaho County free press. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho Territory) 1886-current, 1898-11-25
THE YUKON MINES.
said to Hold Billions of Dollars In
Gold
FAe Opinion 81 . Mining Engineer
Concerning the Mineral Wealth
Of the Northern Gold
Fields,

The interior department has received
copy of an article from the pen of
Russell L. Dunn, an eminent mining
engineer of the Pacific coast, dealing
with the theory Of the auriferous de-
posits of the Yukon basin. The views
Of Mr.. Dunn are regarded with great
respect by those in the department who
are familiar with the subject, and they
will probably be referred to the geolog-
zeal survey for confirmation. Mr..
Dunn says that the placers in the Yu-
kon basin are similar to those of Aus
tralia, Idaho and Montana, except for |
the perpetually frozen condition of the |
ground. He holds that glaciers have
hao little to do with the formation of
placers or the liberation of gold from
its matrix. In California the evidence
OF the placers themselves is conclusive
as to their almost exclusive formation
by frost and steam erosion. Siberia
and Alaska present precisely the same
relative glacial phenomena, the placers
being all formed before the period of
! glacial action. AS the result of long OBJ
servation, Mr.. Dunn says that if accu-
rate records of placers were kept it
would be shown that they increased as
they went upstream to point near the
head, where the maximum was reached.
Going above this it would be found that
the placers diminished until ut a GER
tain point they suddenly disappeared
altogether. There is nothing phenome-
nal in the yield of gold in the Klondike
region. There is no reason to doubt
that in Alaska there are lodes as rich
as those in California and Idaho, Mon
tana, Nevada, and elsewhere. From one
of these lodes, corroded by frost and
washed by a stream, there might be
made placers which would yield in a
few years what would take ten times
as long to mine by the hand of man.
This craft of nature" he says, put
more than thousand millions into the
California placers, and there is, in my
opinion. reason in the. anticipation that
in the Yukon placers another thousand
millions will be found, all things con-
sidered, as easily and even quicker than
was the thousand millions of the Cali.
fornia placers."
Mr.. Dunn believes with many others
that the richness of those deposits has
been only scratched, and that there is
good ground for believing that there
. are others as rich or even richer. The
conditions are unlike those of Califor-
mia in the early days, in that in those
days all man needed was stout heart
and a heavy pick, while in the Yukon
. every miner must be small capitalist
!, in order to be able to mine at all. Yet
he concludes that a man in search of 6
fortune stands a larger chance of find
ing it in the frozen regions of Alask;
= than in the mines of South Africa OF
. western Australia. 1t is not necessar,
!; now to depend on blind luck for dis
roveries, for technical knowledge of TIL
- occurrence and distribution of gold i
= reasonably exact and comprehensive
1t is now possible to explore without tn
expenditure of the enormous amour
Of waste work formerly an unavoidabl
- incident of the business. The placers
= first found form guides to the lode.
and some idea can be formed from tn
;. placers regarding the probable value
u Of the lodes and the risk and uncel
- tainty of quartz mining brought to
minimum.
70 One reason why miners have not a
- ready located more placers is that i
? r,any instances they are covered wit
=. - silt to a depth of eight to 20 fee
- brought down by the stream after
:. lad passed that period when, a rushin
orient, it had torn from the quartz I'll
- ,pecks of gold. In these cases there al
70 indications of the richer deposi
IS to be found lower down, and the mint
:, clust do more than prospect the su
y. face. The prospector must rememb'
y that the surface of the country, VALE
- an1 mountain is covered with dee
strong growth Of moss; that the 81
and auriferus sands of the valley
!. neath the moss are perpetually froz'
II to She bedrock; that from these ply
Gu zeal conditions the methods of pre-
-. pecting for placers and lodes employ,
- elsewhere are impossible of applicable
-, here. There is no special industrial
~ economic reason why the exploitati
az of the Yukon gold fields should not
%. hiphly profitable to both labor a
1.s capital. with less risk of failures of
divdual enterprises. part of the histo
of gold mining elsewhere.-N. Y. ST.