The Alaska sourdough., 1911-12-26
ALASKA TIN

sphere, the steamship Corwin is now enroute to Seattle from Nome. The tin comes from Buck creek, Alaska, located about fifteen miles from York, on the Arctic side
 o. H. Mcdonald, under whose SUD- ervision the creek was prospected for tin, is at the Frye hotel waiting the arrival of the tin cargo The dredge which mined it began opera tions Sept 10 and closed down Oct. IA. During this time the dredge had an output of 92.99 tons, valued at $47,O00.
 That vast deposits of placer or stream tin exist in the vicinity of Cape York has ben known for many years, but it was not until this summer that successful mining operations were be- gun on a big commercial scale.
 Buck creek was located in 1902 for tin. In 1904 the American Tin Mining company operated on the creek and made purchases, tin having been found in commercial quantities. MT. Mo Donald, representing the company, prospscted the creek with pick and shovel in 1906, and continued such prospecting each year until 1910, ta- king out enough tin each year to pay all prospecting expenses. During these years we'll known mining experts from many parts of the world examined and reported upon the creek, their esti mates running from twenty four to thirty five pounds per cubic yard of gravel. Several plans for excavating the tin were tried, but none proved commercially successful until this year when the dredge was constructed.
 The dredge was designed and built by the Union Construction Company San Francisco, H. s. Peake and w. w. Johnson, and operated by the York Dredging Company, of which W. W. Johnson is president. The dredge it. self was built in thirty days after plans for it were completed.
 Buck creek is said to contain the richest placer tin deposits in the world Tests have shown the tin ore to run from GA to 69 per cent pure in. When it is considered that tin ore run ming 75 per cent tin is classed as prac tically pure for commercial purposes. the value of the Alaska deposits can be readily seen. The. York placer tin is in combination with small quantity of silica, iron, and metal technically known as wolfemite.
 At the present time the company has control of about three and one-half miles of these rich deposits on Buck creek. There are also rich deposits on a creek below Buck creek, known as Grouse creek, where another company is now organizing and preparing to build similar dredges to begin work next season. &#
 The dredge which worked So sue cessfully this season is constructed on the general lines of the big gold dredg es, with the exception that there are two sluiceways, into which the materi- al from the revolving screen drums is dumped. Then instead of being pass ed over mat as in the gold dredges, it is washed in the sluiceways over rifles as ordinary dredging. The drum screens are pierced with holes two inch es in diameter and all the Jumps of placer tin larger than these holes pass out with the refuse gravel The de signers are now at work planning larg CT screens so that more of the tin can be saved.
 Placer or stream tin, as it is more commonly known, is familiar to many placer gold miners in the north, large ly through the trouble it causes them. gold, it collects in the rifles and ire quently causes trouble in the cleanups. This has been noted at a number of the placer mines in the Fairbanks country, and placer tin also frequently is en-