The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-02-18

dustry By gold manufacturing I mean
 the mining of gold at such low cost
 that 1t is an industrial proposition. The
 bulk of the gold of our forefathers came
 from the pick, shovel and rocker of the
 individual miner. The bulk of the gold of
 today is gotten out by companies which
 have capitals of millions of dollars, and
 whose profits come from ores so poor
 that our forefathers could not have
 mined them at profit. This is so of
 the Transvaal, which has produced more
 than S2,0oo,0oo,00o worth of gold since i the first discoveries were made about a 1 generation ago, and 1t is true also of the
 greater part of the gold mined in the ! United States today
 i Coming north from Seattle I saw my ! first great gold properties on Douglas
 Island just opposite Juneau. These were i the Trea dwell mines, which have been manufacturing gold, as it were, for more than 35 years. They have taken out , something like 90,0OOOoo tons of ore, and from it have extracted more than s6O,-
 100000. The gold so far taken out has
 averaged only 2.42 ton, and that low average has paid an enormous profit for 9 years.
 Just across the Gastineau channel, a stream of salt water 1000 feet wide, are several mountains of gold which some of the great capitalists are just beginning
 to work. They have already spent mill
 lions of dollars in prospecting and de- veloring, and they will make fortunes
 out of ore whose average gold contents are almost $1 less in value than those of
 the Treadwell. The Alaska Gastineau properties from which the owners expect to be mining gold for a century to come are handling ore worth on the average only s1.5o ton, and the same is true of the Alaska Juneau, the Ebner and other large mines nearby.
 Indeed, there is a strip of territory
 in southeastern Alaska 200 miles long which carries quantities of low grade gold, and to this strip the Treadwell and these other mines belongs While at Juneau l had talk as to the extent of this gold belt with MT. B. l.. Thane, the manager of the Alaska Gastineau. MT. Thane says that Juneau is about in the middle of the belt, and that it runs north and south, much of it being so close to the water that the ore can be handled by gravity. Mir. Thane was then mining gold which averaged only s1.50 a ton, and of that 90 cents was clear profit. He ex- poets to raise this to s1 per ton, and to so increase the output that the mills will grind out more than 10000 tons every day. Sundays and week days year in and year out. The Alaska Juneau is pre- pairing to work on an equally large scale, and it's machinery is as fine or finer than that of the Gastneau. If the figures given me are correct, this would mean an output of 20000 tons a day from these two mines alone, and that at profit of s1 per ton would equal s20,oo0 a day throughout the year.
 In my talk with MT. Thane he spoke of the efforts made to reduce the cost of every possible item. Said he: "We will gladly pay $50,0O0 to any inventor who can show us how to save one cent ton in getting out gold. One cent per ton would mean a saving of $100 a day on one 1o000-ton product. It would mean over sS5,0oo a year; and saving of 10 cents ton would mean the saving of 5000 day. So you see we can afford to pay for the best of machinery"
 Tn speaking of the power used, Mr. Thane said that the hydraulic electric plant erected for the mine had cost more than s1,000,000 to build. but that it gave them 60o0 horsepower, and reduced their power cost to 20 cents per ton less than that of the Treadwell mines. In other words, that reduction on 1o,00o-ton daily output meant a saving of $2000 per day.
 Coming across the mountains into the Klondike I investigated other methods of gold manufacture. The first mining in the Klondike was of the speculative kind of our forefathers. Men dug holes in the ground and dragged out fortunes in gold dust and nuggets The only difference was that in the Klondike the frozen ground had to be thawed down 20 30 or 40 feet to where the gold lay. That sort of mining could not be done unless the gold averaged many dollars a ton. The K [I0ndi1xe mining with r,,aot1ipary carried on now, is in gold values that will average only from 30 to 50 cents a ton and from such values tens of millions of dollars worth of gold have been ex- tracted The Yukon Gold company has the richer properties, but Joseph w. 'Boyle's expenses of mining are by far the less, and he makes a, profit out of gold that averages from B to 30 cents a ton. The Treadwell quartz mines spend $135 to get the gold out of the ore The Alaska Gastineau spends 90 cents ton; but Joseph w. Boyle, whose proposition is a placer one thaws the gravel and gets out the gold for about cents a ton.
 We are now getting more than s10 0OO0,- GOO year from the gold placers of Alaska, and we have already taken about s19o, 100000 of that kind of gold out of the territory. The geologists have esti- mated that there is something like $30o,- 000,000 worth of placer gold in the Seward peninsula and there may be other great deposits of similar nature in the unex- plored parts of Alaska. As to the lode mines, where the gold lies in veins in the rock we have so far taken out s75000,OO0 or $S0,oO0 900 worth of gold and 23 lode mines are now being operated. Their output increased more than $2,00 000 last year and the reports of our geological survey indicate that there will be a. great increase in the gold lode output Of the future. All of this is dependent upon machinery, and it belongs to the low grade mining era of the present.
 Many people think that the only min ing done in Alaska is during the sum- mer. This is a mistake. The mines of southeastern Alaska work all the year round. and those about Juneau and on Douglas Island are kept busy day and night throughout the year Many of the placer mines of Fairbanks get out the earth during the winter, and last ing that season. They are even mining gold on the Koyukuk, not far from the arctic circle, in the heart of midwinter. A large part of the output of that re- zion comes from mines far under the surface In the Innoko district which is producing about $200,0O0 worth of gold, there are 2 mines which are op- erated in winter; and in the Klondike the mining season has been so extended that the dredges work seven or eight months of the year The deeper mines about Nome are kept busy in the heart of midwinter. There were 36 working