Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-07-13
o:4NS}2hGffE NOME
SITUATION AS PICTURED
BY MINER.
No Gold Now on the Beach-High Cost
of LivinE-Many Desti-
tute People.

Assistant Secretary Taylor has received
n letter from a man who has just returned
from the mining camps at Cape Nome and
who pictures the situation there dam
gerOus one. The writer is G.. Rudolph of
Brooklyn, n. Y. He gives the outlook in
the typical language of miner. and APP
parently presents facts not heretofore made
public. He says:
"On account of the terrible reports in the
newspapers concerning the conditions at
Cape Nome /. take the liberty of sending
you a few lines. i left Nome on June ~.
and. being an old miner, am fully capable
of sizing up new mining camp In a few
days. l arrived at Nome on June II. |
and my partner tried working the beach for
gold in several places and / personally
saw others by the hundreds do the same.
but not in one instance did We see a man
take out enough gold to pay for his grub.
Inc only place where any gold was being
taken out was between the beach and the
tuEdra- There tley were only making days
wages of from 81 to $40 a day. This place
is only about thrcc-quarters of mile long,
and II is all taken up by about 800 men.
Like the beach. it is now nearly all worked
out. l, with thousands OF others, had been
lead to believe that after d winter or after
any storm. the beach would be just as good
as it was originally. That is not so. When
once worked out the beach there is done
for. While at Nome | talked with men
who had come from points as far as fifty
miles below the camp. They told me they
had found nothing ard they were going far
ther north. | talked, too, with men who
had come from points far up the beach. but
they declared there YVES nothing up there,
and they were going down the beach. So
IT seems that the whole stretch is nearly
all worked out.
Concerning the Creeks.
Now, concerning the creeks. Anvil creek
is the richest Having kpa
l could not go up, but my partner went the
full length of it looking for work or for
lay. He could get neither. for at that time
june 1.-the creeks We're still frozen. All
that he could discover was that the miners
there were beginning to strip-that is, take
on the top layer of moss and loose dirt,
which is left to dry, while they begin again
in another place. Meanwhile. 1.-the first hole
would be thawed out. BY that means they
managed to work alternate holes. There
is no wood in Nome, as there is in the kIon-
dixie, and coal is $50 a ton on the beach;
while the cost of freighting it over to An
vii creek is l. cents a pound. You can
figure how rich the ground must be to
stand such cost of mining.
No one estimates that more than 300
hands at work on Anvil creek, with as
many more each on Snow, Glacier and Dex-
ter creeks-a total of perhaps 1,5OO men.
When L left. 10000 men We're in the dis
tr1ct, and the only work was in unloading
boats or putting up new buildings. The
former task kept about 800 men busy, and
the building employed about 800. When |
left on June 20, between 800 and loo were
arriving daily. l went up on the San Bias.
which made a trip to ST. Michaels and
brought down 800 men. The Aberdeen, on
which | came back, made two trips, and
brought a few over 500, and 50 several
other boats made one or more trips to s..
Michaels and brought more.
Many Destitute People.
There are far more destitute people at
Nome than people on the outside know of
| know that the San Bias had steerage
hunks numbered up to $50. and over 100
were in the cabin, while there were also
about twenty stowaways. On the Aber-
deem they told me that they had about
twenty stowaways. and no doubt every
boat had a great many stowaways l
spoke to dozens Of men. and they told me
that they had no food, but expected to go
to work when they got to Nome. A meal
costs from 81 to S1JO. coffee and pie or
three crullers. p cents; bed. from 81 to
81, or, when you furnish your own blan-
kets, from 81 10 81. 30. Canned goods are
% cents can: bread. p cents a loaf:
IRE sh meats. from % cents to 81 "A pound
and other things in proportion. There was
only one toilet for the public and there
you had to pay. For water the cost was
- cents for four buckets. and wood was
nearly all gone except at a point several
miles down The beach Even the little
- ''.tA tiItit NdS7 IdIl rotten ana
watersoaked. Coal oil is 81 a case, and
lumber. $50 for dry and Sl2J for green
per thousand, and is scarce at that The
water wells | saw We're from twelve to
hfteen feet deep and are sure to be con-
tarninated by all Of these people being
hudd!ed together so close. When | left
There were tents twenty deep and about
three miles long. Now you don't want 10
forget that ii took more than fifty vessels
TO bring all of these people to Nome. TO
say nothing Of other 5000 coming from
the iuk IN country. There are no induce
ments for the steamship companies to
send their vessels back again for a busted
mob. You may think that / am a cold
loot miner. but ask any miner who was in
that country whether he saw any gold
dust in circulation That is the way to tell
good camp. In eight days / saw only
one man pay for a purchase with dust
W men asked about it, he said that it was
from the Klondike."