Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1900-04-21
U. S ARMY OFFICER
ON CAPE NOME
A United States Official Stationed in
the Gold Regions Tell How For
tunes Are Made.

The mails from Alaska are slow:
just how slow can be conceived from
the fact that Lieutenant Craigie of the
Seventh United States infantry, To-
Gated at the sub-station of Cape Nome
congratulates himself and his brother
officers on the prospect that the
monthly mail scheme will be sue
cessful.
Letters written last summer have
! just been received in the United States
from the miners of Alaska: those that
were written in the fall have barely be-
/ gun to arrive, While the Christmas let
tiers are still on the way.
Still, Cape Nome is a wonderful place
for fortunes and if vou feel that you
are getting rich you can aput up with
the Inconvenience of not getting your
love and business letters regularly.
This article, by Lieutenant Craigie.
! just received, gives a pen picture Of
Cape Nome more clearly h any
thing that has yet appeared in print:
Army Sub-Station, Cape Nome, Alas
ka.-Cape Nome, according to the old
timers, will be the greatest mining
| camp in the world.
Nome City, as it is now called, is
right on the coast of Boring Sea. and
! extends for some miles along the shore.
Along the beach the miners rock out
gold and make from S. to $50 or more
a day-one man. This sounds like a
statement hat admits Of doubt, but it
Is a fact. One man told me himself
he had worked with three others for
fourteen days and they had rocked out
Just $4,000. all hard earned gold, but
they had It to prove the statement.
BIG PROFITS.
Then up along the several creeks.
Anvil. Discovery Snow Gulch, etc. the
yield is really enormous. The famous
claim here Is known as No. 1 on Dis
covery, and has turned out about a
million dollars.
a few days ago a nugget weighing
thirty ounces was found. and about a
month ago one weighing a little over
nineteen ounces was taken from the
slulce boxes on the same claim.
Some men have a centrifugal pump
down on the beach below the town, ana
have sluice boxes running BACK to the
soil called tundra by the natives, which
is filled with fine gold Of a very pure
quality
The thing that impressed me most
was that in less than a month after
the town was started the "diggings''
was the circulating medium, and val
ued al SIG an ounce, although no OFF,
clal assay has been made.
". QUICK
Men go out with their rockers and
pans, and come back to town. and eat
and drink, and pay for it with the re-
suit of the days diggings. There are
numerous propositions to interest men,
OF capital, such as a good water sup
ply system. electric light plants. and
the man who can lay a trolley system
up to the mines for transporting freight
and supplies, has the greatest and
surest business venture of all.
These are now carried by pack trains
and freight wagons. Dogs are also
used, they being able to carry about
forty pounds each.
The town has increased in five
months from about two hundred and
fifty to three thousand inhabitants. and
II is thought hen navigation opens in
the spring there will be 80, 900 or 40, 900
people here.
SUPPLIES HIGH.
Coal is SIS per ton, lumber S1o5 per
thousands: yet people are building and
| settling here. Our new quarters are
very comfOrtable-frame covered with
corrugated iron. We are all nicely set
tied for the winter.
/ am told the Northern lights as seen
hera. are beyond description, and the
moon as bright and clear as crystal,
which in a measure will have to make
up for no day or sun. If our monthly
mail scheme only proves successful
there are many worse places than Cape
Nome, even though SO ISOLATED and dis
tant.
We hope for great things in the
spring, more United States troops and
better facilities for communication with