The record-union., 1898-07-20

ney, but it is only now when people are
spreading out that much work will be
done. A number of men are now at
Star City getting their outfits up to the
mines.
From Seventy Mile to Circle City is
being prospected, and creeks are found
here and there which give good indi-
cations. Coal and Sheep Creeks prom
ise especially well and also the Charley
River. Circle City has been practically
deserted since the rush to Dawson, but
the riches of Mastodon, Independence,
Eagle, Deadwood and a dozen lesser
gulches in the Birch Creek district, will
revive the town. A moderate fortune
can be made in that district in two
years CT hard work. Miners are re-
turning to Birch Creek from Dawson.
They appreciate a district in which
there is no royalty, no wood and log
tax and no timber grants. Across from
Circle City is Jefferson Creek which is
now being prospected for it's whole
length. 1t will be cheaply worked be-
cause of being so readily accessible
from the Yukon River
Further down is the Minook Creek
district which has been SO thoroughly
advertised this year. 1t has developed
some claims which have paid S25,0O0
and $1,000 the first winters work. The
country is to a great extent an un-
known quantity. The discovery of Ida
no Bar. from which men have taken
out 800 day with a rocker is a great
boom for the district and the pros
poets of the camp are extremely bright.
A great country will be opened up in
the Koyukuk. 1t has been known to
miners for ten years, and any pros
pector who went in there has never
failed to bring out good grub stake.
The territory to be worked is of vast
extent, and offers many opportunities
to the newcomer. The Tanana, Kus-
kOquoim and Chandler Rivers have all
been brought prominently to the no.
tice of mining men this year All
things considered, the American side
will seem to be the place of the fu-
ture.
AS for Dawson City itself, 1t is un-
questionably the greatest mining camp
to-day in the world.
Frank Canton, United States Deputy
Marshal in Circle City, and in former
years an officer of the peace in many
of the largest camps of the West, has
'said that nothing he has ever seen
approached Dawson as a model mining
camp. Accustomed as he has been
to dealing with the toughest class of
criminals his commendation of Daw-
son as a law abiding town has great
weight
The sidewalks are crowded with men
and women from morning to night.
People are forced to walk in the mid
die of the streets to make progress
1t is a tumble of good and bad, and
the only pledge of respectability re-
quired is regular attendance at church.
Dawson's population has grown until
it is now between 5000 and 10000
people Nine-tenths of the new
comers are not in the country to work,
and when they find that success in the
Klondike can only be bought by hard
labor they will be ready to come out.
A great exodus of unsuccessful men
will take place this fall, and the cities
of the Pacific Coast to which these
people will go will be overrun with a
rough, desperate and altogether unde-
sirable class. They are now in Daw-
son as the advance guard of the more
substantial men to follow. 1t is
repetition of the history of Circle City.
When the Birch Creek mines were
discovered two years ago, double the
usual invoice of people went there, but
soon left disgusted. Had they re-
manned they would have been in on
the ground floor in the klondike Dis
trict