The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1901-07-06

Schrader, the government geol-
ogist. newly returned from that region.
For one oddly, he will come across
| numbers of United States silver coins
in circulation, plated with gold
| owing to the fact that the
pieces of white metal have been
utilized in a very peculiar way by the
| miners. Their customary method of sep
arating gold from the. sands of the
| beeches is to cover the bottom of the
| rocker with small sheet of "copper"
which is painted with quicksilver. The
latter has an affinity for the yellow stuff,
Selling every particle that comes in con-
tact with it. Until recently the supply Of
copper. available for this purpose was
| much less than the demand, and the min
ers adopted the method Of using silver
| coins instead, applying the quicksilver to
them. AS substitute they work perfect
ly, and I know one man who had his
rocker bottom tiled with siXty-four large
round dollars, which, when dispensed
with, retained plating of gold amalgam
when the gold has been caught upon
the. copper or silver, with the help of the
quicksilver, it is separated from the mer-
curry by heating, and this part of the
business is accomplished by the miner
with no other apparatus than an ordi-
nary Trying pan. Ine quicksilver, being
volatile, passes off and leaves in the pan
a chunk of pure gold, having the form of
beautiful, porous, honeycomb-like cake,
or else like that of a rounded, beady
| mass composed of grains, fakes and
coalesced particles Of the precious metal.
IN this Shape the gold is utilized as
money in the vicinity of Cape Nome an:.
the trading companies are willing enough
| to accept it in payment for food supplies
and 3ther goods, reckoning it at value
! OF SIG per ounce. At this rate they make
a considerable profit. inasruuch as the
stuff, which is puier than the average
| gold of the Yukon district, is really
worth SIS or $40 an ounce.
| 1.-THE gold obtained from the beach at
Cape Nome is in very fine particles,
varying in size from a pinhead to mere
| dust. Flour gold the dust is called,
and undoubtedly good deal of it is lost
| on account Of the crudeness of the appa-
ratus and methods employed for separat-
ing it from the sands. Small nuggets,
| worth about $15G apiece, at a maximum,
do occasionally turn up. Of course, the
| beach gold has been reduced to powder
by the incessant grinding of the surf, and
because of the same friction it is remark
ably bright and pure, resembling fresh
brass. filings in appearances. ~
| ION the other hand, the nuggets dug
] ous&of the creeks and gulclles in that
Ineighborhood are dull, like furnished
brass. These nuggets, as rule. are
| .uunued ana SmoULnly polished by at
Triton with the gravels of the streams
which have torn them away from the
! of
found attached to them, as if to prove
the theory Of their derivation.
1.-The coarser gold is confined to the
creek and gulch diggings,' the nuggets
varying IN size from pinhead to several
ounces Two nuggets, weighing twenty
and twenty-five ounces, respectively, and
worth $500 and $500, were picked UP on
Anvil creek not long ago, while Jumps
half an ounce or an ounce in weight are
not rare. Much of the gulch gold comes
IN fragments about as big as No 3 shot.
Although the yellow stuff at Cape Nome
IS all of it derived from rocks not very
TAR away, nobody knows as yet Just
where 1t comes from. Quartz veins are
hard to find in that region on account Of
| the thick moss that covers most of the
country. : ...<
| During century after century the
streams have worn away the rocks and
carried. their debris of gravel and gold
toward the sea. Some Of the gold was
deposited in the creeks and gulches, while
some was laid down in the sands along
the shore. The bluff that runs along
the shore is composed of such debris
and now the waves of the ocean are at
| lacking 1t, cutting it away piecemeal
AS the land is eaten away the material
is carried seward by the undertow, leav-
| Ing the gold on the strand. Being heavy
the gold works its way downward into
the loose sand near the water line and
thus accumulates, being prevented from
sinking very deep by a. layer Of stiff blue
clay which underlies the beach.
1 The gold-beartng beach area at Cape
Nome is a strip Of fine gravel and sand
| 100 to $50 yards wide and extending
| from the waterline to the bluff. 1t runs
| along the shore for at least fifteen miles,
l and the presumption is that it crops out
/ in other localities, though this remains
to be ascertained. The apparatus en-
ployed by the miners is simply the
/ familiar hand rocker. Each man selects
a patch ten or fifteen feet square and
sinks prospect hole down to the blue
clay, which is usually found at depth
of from two to five feet. AS he digs, he
prospects each layer Of sand or gravel
by panning it, and. when pay streak is
i found. he strips off the everything stuff
| and sets to work with his rocker. Some
| times all Of the gold will lie directly
upon the surface of the clay, while in
4 other cases several inches of the sand
| just above the clay will be rich in the
/ metal. "a 80
| Most of the miners believe that the
gold is thrown up by the waves and con-
stantly renewed-an impression that is
not shared by the geological observer.
The gold is not evenly distributed over
the stratum of clay, but occurs in patches.
/ It is obvious that plenty of it exists in
i that part of the beach that is under
4 water inasmuch as some very profitable
results have been obtained by dredging
off shore. Some of the precious metal is
caught on blankets from which it is col
1ected by removing the blanket from the
1 rocker and rinsing 1t In a bucket OF
water. Much of the beach material con-
sists of black magnetic sand, which il
in reality magnetic iron ore, and before
long it is possible that large electrified
magnets may be employed to separate
this stuff from the gold which it con.
tains. '- Washington correspondence New
Il ynrL II b
Ways OF CUBAN TEACHERS.
Contradictions in Their Mnke-Up
and Methods Of Doing Things.
II takes no gift to perceive that the
4 Cuban teachers now in Cambridge pos
sess characteristics which are strikingly
diversified. They are at once SO gay and
50 sad, 50 indolent and SO Industrious, Sc
confidential and SO reserved, SO erthus-