Morgan County Democrat. (McConnelsville, Ohio) 1886-1943, 1921-10-20

strange dreams. He could not re
member from where he came. His
recollection was a blank. He had
worked in Circle City, but that was
last year. After that he could not re-
member
| Two miners hired launch for
$500 and took him up the river, hav-
ing him watch the shore and try to
remember. Shown the nuggets he
] said he had a dream recollection of
| opening the sack and trying to buy
| something to eat with the gold. But
no place on the river revived his
memory and in disgust the specula-
tors left him at wood camp where
he got job cutting wood for the
steamers. This man had struck it
rich somewhere, but starvation and
mosquitoes jumped his claim.
/ was talking with clerk in a
store in Circle City when a man
came in, bought some tobacco, chat
ted few minutes and went out. The
clerk told me he was graduate
from the state university at Madison,
had four children.
Afterwards I saw him at the boat
landing and observed him closely.
He was about 35 years old, roughly
dressed and had all his face set out
to whiskers. The clerk said he came
into Dawson, as that town began to
run out; he had considerable money
and mining educatiOn-the only
value of the latter qualification in
Alaska placer camps being to make
it's possessor an easy mark for the
"sour doughs."
He bought worthless and worked
out claims and lost every dollar, then
he drifted down the river to Forty
Mile, got interested in a dredging
proposition which never got further
than on paper, and relatives sent him
money, which he was quickly sepaI-
ated from.
Too proud to go back or acknOwl-
edge his second fleeing, he gave up,
"let co." married an Indian girl and
degenerated to "squaw man, I"
working in the stores, mines, man
aging pool rooms, etc.
1t is a fact that there are many
such derelicts in Alaska. North Of
Nome, far up in the Indian country
are several high-bred Englishmen,
who have taken squaws and gone
back to barbarism. These men were
supposed to be remittance men"
who honestly, but foolishly got their
London friends in on some bum in
vestments and were cut off from
their allowances.
Now they are almost on a level
with the natives, seldom come out,
are forgetting their language and
they live in the squalor and filth of
their Indian companions.
Up in this country north of Nome
is unquestionably a big oil field.
Many know of it, and many capi-
talist has seen it, but none want it.
An old timer who had been there
told me that crude oil could be Dip
ped up from the crevices and that
prospectors used it for fuel. He said
the superstitious Indians were afraid
of it and would not go near the
burning water"
The locality is such that it would
be almost physically impossible to
get in the needed machinery on ac-
count of the roughness of the coun-
try. There are miles and miles over
mountains where dog sled could
not be drawn and only men with
light packs and with the aid of ropes
can get over
Representatives of an oil corpora
tion went into this locality two years
ago, thoroughly investigated it and
abandoned the proposition. 1t was
stated that it would require 700
miles of pipe line to get the oil to
Nome, a distance of half this length
and that with the tremendous under
taking of getting the necessary ma
chinery in to open the field the risk
was too great for even the Standard
Oil Co. So nature has locked up
this great asset for a future day,
when necessity will develop it.
There are many coal deposits dis
covered in Alaska, but I was told
that many of them were worthless.
that they contained "green" coal
that would have to lie few thous-
and years yet to season, while those
that were good were entirely worth
less from the fact that they were too
far from the river; and the cost of
production and transportation
would be so far above the price in
the States that there would be no
M ykof f0r And in Eo fhoro