El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1916-07-22
oleaTI1 ana F4y1falLc6SrS NoaA Frankie
E-v~-7 K i0r,~sT lo T1fI pyrgh
Modern dUpddD Hot FI
Grave Ito o

drops from the top of the mountain.
washing down the ice melting earth.
the whole giving one the impression
that mighty cloudburst has torn
down the hills, ana. that avalanches of
earth slides have filled up the valleys.
PincheS of Gold Profitable.
The excavation that has been done In
the Klondike has been surpassed only
by that Of our great canal at Panama
The work is still going on The GuE-
genheims have. on the famous gold
! creeks. nine dredges which are tearing
nature to bits to get out the so cents
worth of gold still locked up in each
ton Of their rock and sand. They have
n dozen hydraulic giants which are
melting and gOuging the hills TO save
the 10 or 20 cents Of gold in each
wagon load of the old White river
channel At Juneau I saw them hand
ling ore worth $3.50 to the ton. and
II seemed wonderful that il could b.
done at a profit Here they are taking
out 20 cents worth Of gold TO the ton.
and the cost is so low that il pays The
amount OF gold dust in each ton is as
small as the pinch of snuff which your
grandmother drew up her nose. and IL
is evenly mixed through as much sand
as two horses can haul on a wagon.
Still they can sluice down the sand so
that every atom OF that pinch OF gold
dust is saved.
Ice Cap 800 Feet Thick.
! despair Of making you appreciate
the difficulties OF mining in this Icy
land of the north. The winters are so
cold that the Yukon Gold company can
not work its machinery for more than
seven months OF the year The most OF
the profits are made in the open season
OF 40 DAYS, and then the work is shut
down until next summer. In addition
10 the ice Of the present is that Of the
far distant past. In other placer min e
ing regions the earth and rock are free
from frost. The gold is sprinkled
through them and you have only to
dig and wash to get the gold out. Here
the whole country. with the exception
Of a foot or so AT the surface. is one
mass of ice mixed with boulders. peb-
bles and sand that has been perpetual
" frozen for thousands of years. It's
condition dates back TO the ice age of
the prehistoric past. The ice goes
down 10 no one knows where. They
have sunk diamond drills in some
places to a depth of 500 feet and found
the earth frozen solid all the way
through The gravel is bedded in the
ice. and the ice. sand and earth remain
as hard as stone. no matter how hot
the summer The conglOmerate or
of muck. on the top of which grows
layer Of arctic moss. the two forming
an insulator that preserves the frozen
conditions beneath 1t is only when
that the hot summer sun makes any
impression on the glacial ice cap be-
low.
Gold Is at Bedrock
It is sprinkled through this ice,
earth and rock that the gold values
lie There is a little not far from the
surface, but the most of the gold is al
bedrock, which may be thirty. forty or
fifty feet down The frozen earth has
to be thawed out. inch by inch. ana
foot by foot. in such a way that it can
be swallowed by the dredges that gulp
il down at the rate of tWenty-six bites
TO the minute and about one-third Of
a ton TO the bite. They take up the
stuff in great buckets which run on an
endless chain and throw il into reyOlv-
ing screens These screens roll the
rocks over and over and sift out the
gold bearing sand They take away
the pebbles and great boulders and
turn the sand out upon plates covered
with mercury which catches the gold.
The dredges will handle something like
5000. 600 tons of material this year and
the amount of gold saved will be sew
eraI millions Of dollars
Must Thaw for DredgiuR
Before any such work can be done
Jack Frost must be taken out OF the
ground to be mined. The dredges can
not work in frozen rock, and the diff
ficulties OF the ice strata are far great
er for them than they were for the in
dividual miners In the first mining OF
the Klondike the perpetual ice really
aided the men by saving the trouble OF
timbering. They co1ld dig down
through II 10 where the great gold
the bed rock, thawing only the strata
that contained the most Of the gold.
The frozen earth was as firm as so
much solid rock and they were able to
work without the wooden supports
necessary to hold UP the roofs of the
mines of other parts Of the world.
The dredges have TO have all the
earth free from frost The region they