The Nome nugget., 1903-08-29
MORE DiTCHES Nome .tO Have More
 Ditching TO BEGIN AT ONCE
An Outside Writer Tells Some. thing of More Ditches Planned
 For This Region.

The Mining and Engineering Review Of San Francisco gave the following story from Nome which THE NUGGET has taken pains to verify. Mir. Lang says that work on the Flambeau river ditch will be begun this fall. and con- siderable progress made before snow flies. This shows that the outside will soon see matters Alaskan in their true light. It is as THE NUGGET has said, largely a question of digging ditches and carrying water to the claims.
 Every day is demonstrating more and more clearly that the great future of this wonderful country depends more and more upon ditches. Experienced miners early foresaw that their con struction was necessary to work the benches economically and successfully with giants and hydraulic elevators, and on every hand the benches are proving richer than the creek claims. After the first cost of ditch cOnstruc- tion is made, large bodies of gravel can be handled so economically that ground which is worthless with pick and shovel becomes rich paying proposi- tion. Another fact which hydraulick- ing has just demonstrated is that when the false bedrock of blue clay and lime stone can be disintegrated by water power, rich pay exists both in and be- low the false bedrock, as was the case in the Dawson country. Hitherto, Nome miners have been content to stop operations at the false bedrock, as it does not pay to work it with pick and shovel.
 Water rights were early secured in the Nome country and several ditches are now in very successful operation. The MiOcene ditch, for instance, from Nome river, is proving great source of revenue to it's owners. The pay roll for this company, since the opening of navigation this year, has been $50, ,OOO q month, but they are taking rich pay out of the ground, and are now busy constructing another ditch.
 Another ditch that will prove of great value is the ditch which brings water from Osborne creek to the benches of Nome river on the east side, and still another is the Flambeau River Ditch which will be twenty-eight miles in length, beginning at the mouth of Hastings creek and running in gen eral northwest direction to Flambeau river, at a point 300 feet south of Wash ingtOn creek.
 A point of interest about the Flam- beau River Ditch is that when com pleted, it will open up what is supposed to be some of the richest pay in the peninsula. It is we'll known that the gold leaves Anvil below No. 3 below discovery. This rich pay is found again on Saturday and Wonder creeks; it has been discovered again lately on the benches on Dry creek, off Nos. and 4 above, Next it is found on Newton Gulch, on to Nome river, and continues down to Cunningham and Hastings creeks, and on the benches down as far as Cape Nome, distant from the city of Nome about thirteen miles. This year working miners and experts alike are striving to locate the general line of this rich nav which is attrihuted ma art1v to an old beach line and partly to the edge of an old moraine, glacial action having deposited much of the gold. J. U. Picard, manager of the Cape Nome Gold Mining Co.,, has been working all summer on the tundra with q traction boring drill to locate definitely the edge