Iditarod pioneer., 1917-01-13
NOME NEWSPAPER PREDICTS
 BRIGHT FUTURE FOR ALASKA
Nome Nugget)

Nome Nugget
 w. C. Leak, the we'll known old-timer of Alaska and the Yukon IS quoted in recent interview as saying that there IS little like lihood of any big strikes being made in the North again He said:
 "Too many good prospectors have gone over the country for anything of great value to have been overlooked. Anywhere you
 Eant to travel in the back country you will find ancient prospect holes and rough
 log cabins"
 In this interview Billy Leak typlhe5 the attitude of many who seem inclined to ex- toll tfe old days and decry the pos,lbll ties
 of brighter future. Billy himself IS re- ferred to in the interview as proSpector of thirty years experience. Well, well That's about as near the mark al nine
 tenths of the reviewers of past days ever hit. He was engaged H business ventures, to put it euphemsticaly, and had very lit
 tie to do with mining until the first Dawson winter, when, because of his successful buSl-
 ness ventures, he he'd enough money to buy one of the richest claims on Eldorado Now, Mir. Leak IS one of the finest and squarest fellows one can meet on the iron
 tier or elsewhere, but we question his Judg
 ment regarding future new dggngs in Alaska. His own memories of Alaska camps should show him the baselessness of his prophecy. When he went down to Forty mile and Circle on his ventures he Lassed g dozen creeks that had been "prospected'
 by good men. Especla ly interesting is the @ct thst hundreds of men went by the
 '>lonGike. Some few prospectcd up that ~'rc@rn. But in spite of the richness of the first tributaries and even of the lower part of the river itself, they failed to find any
 coarse colors. Later Carmack found his
 lich prospect cn a bench about nine feet
 high. and the Dawson stampede began. So il was with Fortymle in the early
 'c9s-prl rticaly Fl the miners in the h. 1 terrier were centered on Fortymile river. There were many good" men among them, too They went all ever the basin of the { river and found some rich bar diggings and some poor creek dlgglngS such aS Poker
 creek. New riches have been uncovered i'll
 that basin ever since with the result that
 Fcrtynle river has produced more gold each year for the past twenty years than
 it ever did in the palmy days of the first
 pioneers
 The history of Farbanks hes been the
 same to a certain extent. There are two
 kinds of prospectors, those who go into the
 virgin wilderness to look for new digglngs, and those who prospect n the vicinity of diggings already discovered The fret class
 - hard time of it, 9nd probably don't
 stend Cne chance in q hundred of finding anything in the placer line worth stalking The second class of men, who sink holes near known gold deposits have a much .,reater chance of finding pay dirt. Men ; of this class, working on their own ground CT on lay for others, have kept on up to i this present season opening up new pay dirt in the Fairbanks country. And the same thing Is bound to happen on the Tolo- vans, Baker creek and other Tsnana tribu- tarcS
 In the early history of Nome, thousands left the camp in 1902 and 1903, declaring that the camp had been worked out A hopeful men did some prospecting on what $ now known as the third beach line, with resylts known to all Then after a few rich years, more people went away and some new ones came The prospecting zone , has continually widened and more nc", camps have been found from time to time And more will be found if we judge the future by the past Not only will pay be found in sections not yet prospected but 1t will be found in sections that are sup posed to have been thoroughly pros pected"
 Down in California, which was overrun
 with prospectors fifty years ago, and where
 mining has been in progress ever since, i new diggings, both placer and quartz, are
 even now being found. New diggings, mark you Only the other day we read of 8
 foolish (of course) and enthusiastic pros pectcr who stgrted out with a jackass or two to hunt fortune in the hills. He
 jourreyed along a turnpike which had been travelled by stage coaches for half a century Seeing 8 streak of different col
 bred dust in the road ahead and not know
 ing much about prospecting anyway, he stopped to examine the pinkish dust. It felt gritty, and there was a dyke of rock visible On the hillside of the same color. So he took 8 painful of the dirt down to
 the creek and washed it. He found lot of fine col0rs. His Investigations ended by
 lis stalking a quartz ledge that he sold for
 S4OO,OOO cash And this rich ledge ran
 across road that had been travelled by ,ens of thousands of prospectors, miners
 and mining experts in previous years
 No, we cant agree with MT. Leak that
 nothing of value remains to be discovered in Alaska Rather We would agree with the
 government experts and thousands of hope ful, hustling Alaskans, that the country has
 as yet only been scratched on the surfece, and that new diggings will be found for many years to come
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