The Alaska citizen., 1910-08-22

Africa up 10 the year l750, and tn i information in those has led me { eliminate two-thirds of Africa.
 Further to illustrate the process
 let Us consider Asia: Siberia was t
 me the worst disappointment. I wa
 there number of years ago, befor,
 the days of the concessionaires
 when We were not wanted and tool
 chances. If I had investigated tn,
 history of the region before I went
 l could have saved myself som,
 tramping. l will cite one passage
 In a book called The Elements o
 Metallurgy,' by J. Arthur Philips
 edition of 1887, it is said that the
 remains of numerous mines have
 been traced by Gmelin. Lepechin
 and Pallas on the southern and east
 ern border of the Ural mountains
 and in them were found hammers and
 chisels of copper. These excava
 tions are inferred to have been made
 by a nomadic people, probably the
 Scythians; and from the fact that
 no iron tools were found in any of
 them, we may conclude that these operations were before the conquest of Siberia by the Tartars, who ef. fected the subjugation of that part of Asia about the year 150 B. c. Smelling was effected by small furnaces made of red bricks. Gmelin found nearly thousand such furnaces in the eastern part of Siberia. In the neighbOrhood of these furnaces were found large quantities of broken pottery, together with nu- merous heaps of scoria, which indi- cates that operations to a consider able extent had at some period been carried on in the same locality" And as for placer diggings, I will add that since the concessions many an American prospector has tramp ed for miles in Siberia and faith fully banned promising gravel that was probably worked some time E C, This does not apply to the whole of il, but there are large areas to be eliminated
 It is a pity that some scientific so- ciety does not extract the informa- tion buried in history and compile it for the benefit of modern seekers after the king of metals. For the present it is best to keep out of the trail of the Queen of Sheba the Spanish dons. and the Portuguese explorers. What they, with their hordes of black slaves, left behind them can only be worked when we get the help of railroads and modern machinery
 On the other hand, even in seem ingly hopeless countries, there are isolated tracts entirely unprospected, where the ancient gold-seekers were held back by hostile tribes. This accounts for some comparatively rich spots in Asia, South America, and Africa, profitable now on ac- count of transportation and ma but they are not now and never have been bonanzas for the ninnaars hn Inc have overcome the obstacles long ago, and the right to work would have been wrested from the say ages, just as we forced the Sioux out of the Black Hills, and as the Spaniards subdued the Peruvians. When at the age of IS I first start ed out prospecting. I thought that nearly the whole world needed eX- ploring, but 1 have since concluded that our forelOpers, black, white and yellow, have left but few corners un- touched.
 So we may eliminate the possible places for new discoveries of the magnitude of Ophir, Peru, the Gold Coast, California, Dawson and Nome, down to a few thousands of square miles. And gold is not found by a dream When it is dis covered, it is because some man is there and digs it up Of those who do the digging and discovering, that is, the true prospectors, those who can and will do nothing else, there are, in my estimation, only about 5000 in the world. I know this about as well as an old-time tramp printer could tell you how many other tramps there were on the road; guess, but a fair one Of the halfway prospectors there may be probably half a million. Fall ing back upon farming between sea sons, they never get far from home, and don't count heavily. In this con- nection I admit that it is not al ways the experienced prospector who makes the discovery, for 1t has often been some greenhorn drawn into the excitement, for whom they blazed the way and showed how at least, If not exactly where.
 It is an interesting question what this bunch of dyed-in-the-wool pros DectOrS is doing and which way they