Seward gateway., 1904-10-21
ON WlLEOW CREEK
 AND GRUBSTAKE
An Account Which Tells of the In teriOr Country and it's Great
 Possibilities

O. G. Herning, field manager for the Klondike x Boston Gold Mining company, his wife and boy, arrived in Seward on the last trip of the Dora from Knik and will make this point their future home.
 Mir. Herning has secured residence property on North Third avenue and will at once begin the erection of house. His boy entered the public school last Wednesday.
 The Klondike & Boston company $ property is located on Willow creek and Grubstake gulch-Willow creek being a tributary of the lower Susitna, and Grubstake gulch, a feeder of Will low creek.
 This company own thirty-one placer claims. some of their holdings having been acquired in 1898, and others haV- ing since been purchased.
 Willow creek, which runs about east and west, is 50 miles in length, and this property is situated in what is known as the basin, about 3O miles above its junction with the lower Susitna, This basin, which be- gins above the canyon, is about 2O miles long and varies in width from 600 to 1000 feet. The Alaska Central railway crosses Willow creek below the canyon.
 As Willow creek heads in the foot ! hills of the Matinuska mountains, these claims are only about 24 miles from tide water at Knik, while by follow inc the course of the streams the F. tance is no miles.
 Mir. Herning now has landed at Knik all the necessary hydraulic machinery to operate the mines under his control on commensurate scale. This ma terial will be Sledded to the property this winter.
 This machinery consists in part of a new RubIe grizzly elevator which will handle boulders weighing as much as 800 pounds and throw them B feet in the air. This does away entirely with the necessity of an elevator. There will be three giants and the Ruble grizzly at work next season. During the past summer operations were confined more to dead work and getting ready for more extensive op- erations in the future. Instead of the best pay being found in the creek, de- velopment proved that the benches were more prolific in auriferous wealth, and as Mir. Herning stated, he is very well satisfied with results.
 Considerable dead work has been done. It was necessary to blast 300 feet in length of rock in the canyon to secure proper dump. Ditches were run-one through a very hard cement formation.
 Only ten days of actual mining has been performed, yet in that brief time sufficient gold was extracted to pay for all the labor which had been carried on, on the property MT. Herning has troy pound of the gold with him; it is quite coarse, very rough and is about 500 fine. This gold is different in appearance, not being worn so smooth as other gold from the interior
 Mir. Herning tells of an interesting deposit belonging to his company It is cement gravel bank 800 feet high, which carries gold in paying quanti- ties. In digging a ditch through this cement enough gold was recovered 10 pay the cost of the work. This ce- ment is so tenacious, however, that a giant will not cut it, but he is of the opinion that by starting face on it, it will air-slack sufficiently that sev- eral feet can be washed away at a time with giants
 Some nuggets were encountered during the few days that active mining was cdrried on. Many pieces were found ranging in value from 50 cents to S1OO, while one was picked up that weighed Sl12O. The Grubstake gulch gold is easy to save, even the four gold, but Mr. Herning finds that by using mercury he obtained more sat isfactory results.