The Cordova daily times., 1920-06-26
ALASKA ADVISORY COMMITTEES
 REPORT IS PRESENTED IN DETAIL

! ical methods involving large invest ments. Including in the reserves only the auriferOus gravels of which some test has been made and which are be- lieved to carry enough gold to warrant exploitation under pre-war economic conditions, the geological survey esti- mates that the Alaska placer gold re- serves have value of between S240,- OOO,OOO and $36O,O00,OOO.
 Alaska gold lode mining in the past has been chiefly based on large low grade deposits of the Juneau district, whose profitable exploitation has been possible only by very large operations. The enormously increased cost of min ing owing to the present economic con- ditions, has greatly curtailed mining at Juneau.
 The most promising present field for Alaska gold lode mining is in the ex- ploitation on small scale of the aurif- erOus lodes of higher gold tenor which have been found in many localities, notably in the Willow creek and Fair banks districts. Geological informa- tion indicates a wide distribution of auriferous deposits and there is every reason to believed that other workable deposits of goldbearing quartz will be employed when the country is opened up by railroads and wagon roads.
 Alaska copper mines, first operated in 1901, have produced a total of 545,- 100000 pounds of copper, valued at $114,526,00O. Stimulated by the war price of copper the Alaska mines made their maximum output in 1916, amount ing to 119, 9,855,0 ,000 pounds of copper, valued at $29,484,OOO. Owing to the fall in price of metal and to uncer- tainty of market, the Alaska copper production fell in 1919 to 47,220O0OI pounds, valued at $8,783OOO.
 Copper deposits are widely distrib uted in Alaska and there is every req son to believe that their exploitation will increase under better transporta- tion conditions. Much the larger part of the present copper output has come from the high-grade ores of the Chitina district Larger bodies of lOw-grade ore have been found in several dis tricts, notably on Prince William sound, and the exploitation of these should give a greater stability to the Alaska copper mining industry
 Owing to the withdrawal of all Alas ka coal lands from entry in 1906 there was no development of the coal fields until the leasing law went into effect in 1914. Since then some advances have been made but operations have been hampered by economic condi- tions imposed by the war, and by cer- tain restrictions in the leasing law. As consequence Alaska has produced in all only 253,0OO tons of coal, and her output in 1919 was only 60,000 tons. Meanwhile, she is importing annually about 100000 tons of coal from Washington and British COlum bia.
 Much the larger part of the coal re- serves of Alaska are lignitic, which, under present methods of utilization, are not available for export. The Boring river and Matanuska fields con- tain, however, very high grade bitum inous coals of better grade than any found on the Pacific seaboard, as we'll as some anthracite. These coals are for the most part closely folded and much broken, making them expensive to mine and rendering them in part unavailable for present profitable ex- ploitation. There are, however, in both fields high-grade coals that can be mined and these will find an ex- port market Until these fields have been more thoroughly prospected by underground exploration it is impos- sible to predict how large an annual tonnage can be produced from them. The Alaska oil lands were with drawn from entry in 1910 and thereby practically all petroleum development was stopped until the passage of the leasing law in 1920. In spite of this handicap some 53,OOO barrels of petro- leum have been produced in the Ka- talla field. Meanwhile, Alaska is draw
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