Douglas Island news., 1900-10-17

has been found all the way to the top of the hills which divide the creek val leys which are tributary to the Christo- china, and in all the streams gold is found, even on the surface Bedrock is down from 5 to 15 feet, and the ground can be worked the entire sea- son through, as the country is not bound up in frost as is the Klondike. The grass grows luxuriantly in these creek valleys, and feed for stock is abundant. The ground freezes only two or three feet in winter, and the past winter did not freeze more than two feet. The weather is not so exceeding ly cold as to make living in the coun- try a hardship, and being but about 200 miles from the seacoast, at Port Valdez, with government wagon road nearly all the way to the valley, transporta- tion is not difficult. The gold of this district is valued by the United States assay office at S18.45 per ounce. It is coarse and dark yellow, rather inclined to be faky. There are few mug gets, but grains of gold as large as coffee berries are found scattered all through the country, even as high up as the ridges between the various creeks which run to the main river.
 De-, C,r,o,,o,,c,b o,,o of +bo d;eoOvar CTS of gold on Livingstone creek in the Big Salmon district, arrived in Skag- way Oct. 5th with S10,O00 in nuggets, the product of his discovery claim, says the Alaskan. s. H. Lough, anoth- CT one of the three owners and discov- erers, arrived on Thursday. Both con firm all the good reports that have heretofore come from the Big Salmon district. MT. Lough says every claim worked this season has paid we'll, and will do more next year. The country is not all staked yet, nor has it been we'll prospected. We discovered gold on Livingstone creek, said MT. Lough, early in August, 1899, and recorded our claim on the 14th of that month. We commenced work on discovery at once, using only pick and shovel and sluice boxes. The three of us took out S3600 in that short month. This year we had a very short season and used the same crude process, but we brought out about s12,000. It represents the work of three men from about the middle of June until the first of September-not three months-and three miners whom we employed for portion of the time. We could work only one string of sluice boxes so could not employ more men. Mir. Cavanaugh and l are now going out and will take machinery in for next year when we will employ more men and make better showing. We expect also to work hill claim, No. 1, and claims Nos. and above dis covery, all of which prospect we'll and belong to us. J. A. Peters, our other partner, will spend the winter on the creek. There is certainly wonderful deposit of gold in the Big Salmon dis. trict, and it is known to abound on Livingstone, Summit, Lake, Cottoneva and Mendocino creeks. May and Mar tin also have gold on them but it will require more prospecting to tell how much. The only claims to be worked much this year were upper and lower discoveries on Livingstone and discov- cry on Summit. They all paid well. Our claim is lower discovery on Liv- ingstone and it can be made to pay Sl00 per day to the man, though we did not do so well this year. Next year there will be at least forty claims worked and more than half of them are sure to be producers. The proprietors of lower discovery on Livingstone creek are we'll known Seattle men.