The Nenana daily news., 1919-02-10

c0rdlng district lies to the north side of the Alaska Range and in cludes portions of the basins of the Nenana and kantishna rivers, the southern portion of the Panama lowlands and some of the outlying mountain ridges, and lies between meridians 1490 and 1510 10' west longitude and parallels 63' 25' and ! 64' 15' north latitude This district comprises approximately 5000 square miles, portion of which is in cluded in the Mt. Mckinley National | Park.
 In the year 1905 placer gold was | discovered on Eureka creek and sev- eral thousand stampeders rushed to the new strike. It was unfortu- nate that the majority of the gold type, and, after blanketing all the ground that looked good, they stampeded out just as fast as they stampeded in There were, however, about 40 of the oldtimers who stayed with the country in order that they might prove or disprove the value of the ground Although the remoteness of the Kantishna district from the established lines of transportation has made travel to it difficult and the transporta- ton of supplies expensive, these same 40 have stayed by the coun- try and are ready to prove to the world that the Kantishna region is one of the richest districts, both in placer and quartz, in Alaska. Up to 1916, Fairbanks was the source of supply and each season one of the prospectors would make his annual pilgrimage for the years outfit. This would be freighted to Diamond by small boats, dis tance of $50 miles; it was then placed in caches until sledding time and hauled with dogs to the various camps. The total cost of freighting being about 10 cents per pound. When the town of Nenana was es- tablished the distance was shortened but the price of freighting re- mained. With the completion of ] the railroad to the Nenana coal fields, the distance to the Kan tishna country will be reduced to about 65 miles, and with the con struction of wagon road will re- duce the cost of transportation to cents per pound or less.
 In order that we may become ac- quainted with the magnitude of this district, conservative figures will show just what may be. ex- pected if proper transportation fa- cilities are provided. At present there are about 700 placer claims or 14,O00 acres of gold bearing gravels. These claims are all pro- ; ducers and contain approximately / 160,00O,O00 cubic yards of gold bearing gravel and should yield at least T5 cents per cubic yard,' mak- ing total of $120,OO0,O0O which would take Is No. 3 hydraulic giants 30 years to work out. The above figures do not include the I thousands of acres of unexplored ground in this district, which will no doubt become large producers if handled in a scientific manner. ! MT. Stephen R. Capps, of the United States Geological Survey, says, with better transportation that will be made available by the completion of the government rail- road mining costs may be SO reduced, that placer gravels here, tofore unavailable may be mined at a profit. Among the streams that . may become productive in tho future are Rainey, Spruce, Myrtle, Stampede, Crooked, Plume and a number of the tributaries of the Bear Paw river. Numerous coarse colors were found on the benches of the Clearwater. On all of these. streams coarse gold has been found, in encouraging quantities. By