Morgan County Democrat. (McConnelsville, Ohio) 1886-1943, 1923-09-20

cake at times would command
dozen times its weight in pure gold
dust, for you can't phone down to
the grocery and have the auto de-
livery bring out cake. Once
man loses his ''risine" and he has
lost his bread. So bit of it is car
ried on from one baking to another,
guarded more carefully than the
belt of nuggets. And that is the
"sour dough" story
4 man buried three feet deep in
Dawson soil twenty years ago may
he exhumed today and ne will be as
life-like as in the old Klondike days
when the miners laid him there.
Cause why? Because he is an
original stiff" he has been in cold
storage for twenty years frozen as
solid as his dirt bed
Once plant man below the thaW
level, about two and a half feet and
a thousand years from now he can
be dug up and be found in an excel
lent state of preservation.
1t occurred to me this scheme had
the ancient Egyptians worsted and
] suggested to a miner that as it was
but a matter of years when Dawson
would return to the wild from
whence it came, that permanent
markers should be put over some Of
the hardest frozen stiffs, so that the
explorers of the new civilization
thousand years hence would not
have so much trouble in research
and guessing. He replied that 1t
would be of no avail, for the minute
these frozen bodies were uncovered
to the warm air they Immediately
went into the phosphate business.
AT st. Michael short time ago
the body of Russian priest was eX-
humed and I talked with "Old
Tom" one of the men who dug him
up He had been buried on the
shore of the North Sound and boat
company wanted the ground for dry
dock purposes. The priest had been
buried for more than 20 years, and
when eXhumed he was in just the
same state as when buried-he had
been frozen solid all these ears.
But all dead bodies are not in
this condition, in fact the most of
them are not, for the reason that 1t
is mighty hard work to dig a grave
through the solidly frozen ground,
and as a fellow said, "What does it
matter whether they keep or not. "
That was the way | reasoned when
helped bury the trio of Eskimos.
The man who helped to eXhume the
priest said that before the body had
arrived at the new grave decompo-
sition had made the face almost un-
recognizable as a human face.
/ rendered SO gold piece for
] Il 70 no w V
down the river, and the girl at the
cash register asked me if I was 60
/ ing up or down. / thought she was
! getting chatty and fiattered myself
| that she wanted to know if | was
| going to remain in town, so friend
wife being several hundred miles
away, I endeavored to look boyish,
and told her l might buy lot and
! build in Dawson. Her reply dash
ed my hopes for Irritation. Il
wanted to know which kind of
change to give you," she said, and
then she explained if l was going up
! the river she would give me 1925
in Canadian money, but if | was go
ing down, in Alaska, she would give
me American currency.
| It was a peculiar but positive fact
that the "sour doughs," the real
seasoned Alaskans who have been
INSIDE" for six or eight years, are
afraid to go out. There are hun
dreds of such men in Alaska, many
of them sick and tired of the hard
and comfortless North Land, and
who yearn to return to the States
but when the time comes, they
don't go; they put it off until an
other summer, and then put it of
again.
They are simply afraid to go out
and mix with the hustle and
changes. They think they are like
the boy off farm who goes to New
York for the first time. They real.
ize they have been out of the world
/, for several years and they think the
minute they step onto the dock a.
/ Seattle every bunco steerer in the
city will know them by their awk
ward ways and ,pOunce onto them
u It's a sort of mental alteration, Ol
Il palmer, Yukon insanity. There ART
many varieties In Alaska, all thu