Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1900-11-15

tent OF III the corner of a cabin ba.
iieye that just before the stear..-
Bertha sailed from Nome last Octo,,.
with big shipment of gold dust ar5
nuggets to the San Francisco min.
there was about half ton of g5I5
stored in all manner of primitive ~.
ceptacles and odd ways in the tents 81,
the beach. Beside, there was f,u,'
1900 pounds of gold similarly saved y
the tents and cabins of the mine
along the creeks and in the gravs1I,.
gulches back of Nome. Any hollow
thing was used--soup tureens ti,
cans, glass bottles, boots, gas min.
paint buckets, fur garments and ava,
stockings and goloshes. Very few r.,
the miners failed to get some gold tbe
first day they PANIED and rocked gor
it. Flieir hoard grew fast and tbev
had no strong box, no pouch in which
to store it. In some instances tbs
makeshifts were amusing. One man
made a great pouch for his gold ont NJ
an enormous chest and back protector
"a sort of waistcoat made of sealskin
which he had cured. dressed and man.
himself. Another miner utilized
joint of stovepipe. He didn't have
even a tent when he went to Nome
Some one threw away rusty stove.
pipe joint and the miner got it, He
cut round piece of board and fitted II
in one end of the pipe. Then he stood
the pipe up on end on his claim, and
dumped into it each day the gold dust
as fast as he washed and dried il.
believe he got about 80 pounds of gold
for his seasons work last year.
"A lot of the gold washers on The
beach used wornout rubber boots as
receptacles for gold dust. A Swede on
Snow creek had three rubber boots
nearly full of gold last September
He kept the boots standing behind Lis
bunk of blankets. A loaded rifle hung
on nails over the boots as a sort of
warning that any thief of the treasure
would be shot with that particular
weapon. Beer bottles full of gold dust
were common about the Nomers
habitations, and some used coffee.
pots A man on Anvil creek, near my
claim, made his walrus-skin cap gold.
dust bag. Tin tomato-cans and fruit
jars standing under miners hunks and
full Of gold were common all over Cape
Nome last year.
The abundance of gold at Cape
Nome is without precedent. We
thought Klondike rich, but Cape Nome
is far richer. My brother wrote me
from Dawson City last January that
1000 people were then making ready
to leave Klondike and get to Cape
Nome as fast as possible There are
II claims being developed at Nome
that are all richer than any single
claim ever gnown in the Klondike, and
the Cape Nome field has only been
cursouly prospected so far. The gold
output from Nome last summer was
$4,000 900 greater than that from The
Klondike during the first season OF
operations. ! have seen greater IN
dividual hoarG5 Of gold on Cape Nome
than ever saw in the Klondike. !
know a camp of a dozen miners all
natives of Connecticut, who had a lot
of fine claims on Snow creek. | saw
at their camp one Sunday last Septem-
Der a pile of gold that was sold to the
Alaskan commercial company few
days later for $79,350. That repre-
scented about IA weeks work. Be
sides, the men had spent some $4,000 IN
fumes for sluices and had lost time
from gold washing by doing carpenter
work about their sluices. When l
happened to go strolling into the com
pany camp tent the men had almost
finished a careful Weighing of the gold
en- heap. The gold lay heaped up in
the middle of a canvas sheet. Come
here, Quinn, and look at this said one
of the miners to me as | entered
There's the biggest gold sight you
ever saw. How's that for few lonely
cusses out of luck, who have been
chasing over Alaska for bare living
five years?
81 have seen in a walk about the
camps at Cape Nome on a Sunday NJ
ternoon many a ye-gallon kerosene on
can full of dust and worth about Sl4+
600 Out on Nome creek four miners
had a washtub half-full of gold dust
By the way, there was a tragedy over
that gold. Two weeks after ] was
there one of the partners was shot
dead by an unknown man, but is has
always been believed that one OF his
partners killed him because he had
stolen some Of the firms gold. one
Norwegian miner, who can't read OF
write. and has a claim on william
creek. showed me pair of heavy can
vas overalls that were his treasury
He had sewed and overlapped the legs
of the garment so as to make TWO
great, heavy bags. | think he must
have had 100 pounds avoirdupois or 1he
yellow metal on hand when ! was al
his cabin. | have seen several tunes
in one day in the tents along suCh
creeks as Anvil, Snake and Car, slu"'
600 worth of gold and was not trying
TO see the stuff, either. Col >, T.
Mason told me that in one day la7t
he saw George Miller one u