The Nome nugget., 1904-04-06

Council City, March 29.-tollowlng is a letter received by Rev. Dr. $. Hall Young, of Council from Rev NJ. Egg bert Koonce, of Rampant. Mir. Koonce's letter is dated Feb. 25 and it may be considered entirely reliable. It gives the latest authentic information of the Panama diggings. Mir. Koence writes:
 The great and important point at present is in reference to the new field on the Panama, which we should by all means have occupied this winter and for which provision must be made im- mediately. 1 have written you of the better news of that camp which began to come in late in the summer and of the very promising prospects. n order to make sure of the truth of these re- ports made trip over there just as soon as could get off after the holi- days. returned two days ago, after a months absence, eight days being required to go and seven to return. l held services the first Sunday at Cinema and the second at Fairbanks, spending about ten days visiting the creeks. l was on almost every claim of the five creeks, where good pay is being taken out, and made thorough examination Of the whole field. Many of the men at work there are old friends and ac- quaintances, and think got pretty correct reporo of things. l am now prepared to say that this is the best thing yet turned up in the interior, and very possibly will be close rival to Nome and Dawson. On Fairbanks creek for a distance Of four and half miles the creek is being worked, and large dumps are as thick as corn hills. Two miles of Chatham. about the same of Pedro, and about three miles of Cleary creek, show the same thing, and on Goldstream there are several different points where large dumps are being taken out It is certainly sur prising to see the amount of work that is being done, considering the scarcity of grub, etc. As to the richness of this ground there is no question. No. 9 below, bench claim, on Cleary, accord ing to conservative, old Dawson miners, has shown up better so far than any thing on the famous Eldorado creek have known the men who are work ing on this claim for several years and put reliance in their word. They sunk shaft about 50 feet and came upon six feet of pay gravel out of which they took $50 in five pans. They then drift ed B feet across the channel, and found as good or better pay all along. lp a few days they banned out several hun dred dollars. The least pan taken from their six-foot drift was 10 cents, and the largest s2l.65. One can pan on their dump and scarcely fail to get Sl to $S to the pan. After drifting 3 feet across the channel they struck thawed ground and water came in and filled their drift. They are putting down other shafts, however, and will no doubt take out good stake before summer. There are dozens of claims on all of these creeks where very rich pay is being worked. No. below on Fairbanks creek was worked some last summer. The average for all the ground handled was l3t cents per pan better than the best Eldorado claim averaged
 ''The great trouble is that grub has been hard to get. Last fall the stores shut down on all credit, and the fel- lows who had depended on getting their winters grub on credit had to go out and pan and rock out the money for it provisions of the camp, that is, the sta ples was exhausted before the first of December. Since that time it has been freighted from Rampant, Circle and Panama at the rate of 50 to 75 cents per pound. They have already cleaned out Circle and Tanana, and Rampant is pretty we'll exhaused There will not be enough grub in all these places to feed the people, except at starvation rations. You can easily understand how little work and prospecting could be done under these conditions. and it is quite marvellous that as much has shown up as is now in sight. feel very positive that this is destined to be the big camp of interior Alaska.
 "As you know, there are two towns,