The representative., 1900-10-11
A Dawson Paper Tells Of the Findilfx
of an Ancient Coin Imbedded
Below the Ice.

Dawson OF the discovery Of ancient
coins in the Big Skookum gulch, which
the Dawson Daily News says points to
the fact of a prehistoric race in the
Klondike. While Harry Nicodet was
mining with two companions at the
head Of the gulch, he found, IA feet be-
meath the surface of the frozen earth,
remarkable coin. The miners were
digging the last five feet, which was
through an ancient glacial mass Of ice
Directly beneath the paleocrystic mass,
and lying on a fold of the bedrock, Mr..
Nicodet found coin that Is a puzzle to
the archaeOlogist and numismatic ex-
perts Of this section, though there arc
men here skilled in reading the Egyptian
hieroglyphtcs and other ancient writ
ings. It is about the size of copper
cent, though not more than half as
thick, and is apparently brass, or some
combination Of copper and zinc Both
sides are covered with strange charac-
ters resembling hieroglyphics to the
unframed eye, and the edge is milled
as artistically as the dollar of 1.-The out
side" A peculiar thing about the coin
Is that 1t does not appear to be worn
at all, the edges OF the hieroglyphics be-
ing as sharp and clear cut as a new $40
gold piece. 1t was made with die,
like modern coins.
The circumstances of it's finding are
vouched for by Nicodet and his two fell
low workmen, and the fact that no coin
like this has ever been seen before is a
circumstance tending to confirm their
story. It their statement is accepted as
true, 1t means that prior to the glacial
epoch, before this country was frozen up,
the coin was washed with the gravel
and sand of Big Skookum, and finally
found resting place where it was dis
covered many aeons of time afterward,
for from the time of the ice age this
country has remained locked in frozen
state, the underlying muck, gravel and
broken bedrock never having thawed or
become free.
It also presupposes that the pre-
glacial Inhabitants of this country were
tolerably we'll advanced in the arts and
sciences; that they understood the art
of smelling, refining and combining
metals; that they we're sufficiently civil
lied to understand the construction of
dies and the manufacture Of coins; that
they possessed written language, in
telligible and understood by them, and
that they passed the stage of barter and
realized the need of possessing circu-
lating medium.
II all this is granted, it must also be
presumed that they were correspond
ingly advanced in other and collateral
respects. The Klondike miner, digging
for gold, is doubtless perforating the
winding sheet of once powerful and
CIVILIZED race that passed away in the
Unreasonable depth of time, destroyed
by the lowering. temperatures that
formed the immense ice fields, whose
ceaseless grinding wore mountains into
hills and covered every vestige of their
presence with hundreds of feet of NOR
raine detritus.
Accepting this coin as q genuine lind
Of prehistoric race, the question arises
whether it has been transported by gla-
ciers long distance and finally lodged
on Big Skookum, or whether it escaped
the general burial of the country Evl-
dences of former race of people having
inhabited this section are unfortunately
rare, but only on a few creeks has work
been done, and then only to the upper
bedrock, beneath which substratum of
gravel is superimposed on a second and
probably primitive bedrock When this
is penetrated, additional evidences of \
early occupation will probably be found.