The Indianapolis journal., 1898-01-31
GOLD MINING UNDER DIFFICULTIES.
Miners Must Make Ten Dollars "a
Day to Pay Expenses.
Detroit Free Press.


A letter has just been received at Niles
from Scott Haywood, dated Dawson City,
Oct "a, 1897. The missiye, which was di-
recteG to his mother, and which cost him
81 to send over the ice, has tendency to
dampen the ardor of klondike enthusiasts
An abridgement of the letter is follows:
Everything on Eldorado and Bonanza
creeks is already staked off, leaving no
chance for claims there and it is too cold
to prospect until spring. man can, how
ever, prospect some one else's ground, and
If it is good he gets half of what he digs
out of fifty feet square. We have a claim
one hundred feet square. The owner had to
leave because his provisions gave out. This
IS the only claim on the Eldorado that has
been secured this winter that has pay dirt
In 1t and partially worked. 1t is all luck
no science hole is dug 3x6 feet through
the moss and dirt down to bed rock BY
building fires in the hole and thawing the
art, which is frozen the year round, the
art is shoveled out into pile, and in the
spring washed out with the water that
flows past in the creek. The only way one
can tell whether he is going to get pay dirt
is by melting snow once in a while and pam
ming out what gravel you have and if It
mas enough gold in it to average 20 cents to
the pan you have pay dirt. The trip from
mere to our mine is something frightful.
we have taken one sledload of provisions,
but L am here for another. 1t took three
OF us three days to make the siXteen-mile
trip with the sled and six hundred pounds
of food. Mercury is twenty degrees below
zero and winter is just begun. The ice is
noWlng past me now on the old Yukon in
sHuAino % uls dS IuOuHldillS. lOuf is sell
Ing at S75 to $120 per hfty-pound sack.
EVERY steamer that comes up the Yukon
mas to have Indian pilots. The two COM
pan1es who provide for the men have all
the pilots bought up, so if you hear of COM
panles being formed to bring stuff up the
Yukon and to st. Michaels you may know
tnat they Will never get there. The Yukon
oeloW here is simply impossible to travel,
II WldenS out ten to forty miles, with hun
dreds or channels, and no white man has
eyer run boat up or down without In
4
and when they pull ia here they have fifteen
or twenty pilots on board This country
VIII always be short of provisions until
railroad is built, which probably will not be
for a great many years. One can find pien-
ty of work here at 81 an hour Hundreds
of men who have good claims are leaving
on account OF having no grub. They go TO
Circle City, where the last boat got stuck
and couldn't get any further. You can't
pan out dirt from any creek without find
ing some gold, but you must find more than
IS or $lO day or it won't pay, as food costs
so much. We go up on the hills and cut
fifty cords of wood and sled it down hill
Cllke coasting) burning a fire in hole all
night. One man fills the buckets with
gravel that has thawed during the night
and the other man windlasSes it up in a
common well affair, and in the spring, when
1t gets warm, the creek runs like a mill
race, and you throw your dirt into q long
trough and the gold stays on cleats on the
bottom. Beef is $3.50 a pound and you get
it on a stick, the stores having no paper
Unless you take something in which to car
ry home your purchase you would get no
notice, and many are forced to offer their
overallS for a receptacle for their sugar
All the restaurants are closed; nothing left
to eat. Men who have been mining for
years say this is the worst that man ever
IN OO fhrnI1ph Tn oaf