The Kusko times., 1929-01-26
MINERAL OUTPUT OF ALASKA
 SHOWS A NOTEWORTHY IN
 CREASE GOLD PRODUCTION
Continued from Page i.)


 tion of gold, and prospecting was .ac- tive at a4number.of. other places.
 The increase in production of gold from placer mines is attributable in most part. to the4greater- output from the propertiess.of the Fairbanks Ex : ploratiom Company, in the Fairbanks district, ,5.which early in 1928 placed two of it's large dredges in operation on Goldstream creek and the Chata- nika river and before the end of that season had lnished smaller dredge on upper -Goldstream creek and had had begun mining with it. The be- ginning of. production from this large project has not only resulted in great lv, increasing the amount of gold minede in the. district, but what is perhan seven more significant, gives promisa4of greater output in the succeeding years. So far as has-been reporEad, no other new dredgesi were constructed in Alaska during : 1898. but several that were constructed in 1927 and operated only short time during .. that year were running. throughout 1928. A few of :. the, dredges-sthat formerly were active. were idleIgduring 1928, but on the whole all the dredees that produced much gold in 1927 were again active last year,, and most of them report. fully as large production as in 1927. As result. approximately; 64 per cent@of the placer gold that was recovered in 1928 was. mined by daedges.
 The amount of gold produced from the piaeers that are mined by other methods than dredging seems to have beene slightly less than that derived from such placers in 1927. No new finds of placer ground were made during the year that yielded any con- siderable. amount of gold, and inevit ably each year many of the known areas1of placer are worked out. There still remain, however, large placer reserves that could undoubtedly be woreasd by companies having adequate capitali anda skilled engineering aid.
 Copper.
 Thesvalue of the copper produced from Alaskan mines in 1928 is esti- n1atef8to have been S6,100,000. This marks aadecrease of about S1,150,O00 ovefathe value of the copper produced by these mines in 1927 and aeon tihuation of the decline in the pro- duction of copper in Alaska that has been more or less steadily in progress since 1923. In 1928, as in former years, practically all of the copper came from the mines near Kennecott, in the Copper River region, and from one mine on Latouche Island, in the Prince William Sound region. These mines alone, according to the pulp Hshed reports of the Geological Sur vey, have yielded copper worth $200,- 100000 in the Is years OF so that they have been actively developed
 In the vicinity of tn eknown ore bodies at these, mines extensive tests have cen made to determine their extent and to disclose any other bodies. The extent of the deposits that are being mined has thus been closely mapped out. Nc notable neW ore bodies are reported to have been discovered during the year. Although large parts of the known ore bodies still remain to be mined, they are being depleted each year, so that, un- less new deposits are found, still further. decrease in the output of cop per from Alaska is inevitable. That there are in the Copper River region, as we'll as in other parts of Alaska, other deposits that hold promise of | profitable development seems likely, ! and prospecting kwork is in progress