The Kusko times., 1934-01-20
iGo otntrnded- from Page 1.)
MINERALS OF. ALASKA


 tfthe Territory to; dae to about S419,- !. 791, ,GG0sol>2the. old basis of gold value i. Since midsummer the Treasury has been paving z pselnium 4on newly mined gold, the price in early Decem- Der behlgF eyefs s34 ,an ounce. In this summary the gold value isstated on ., the bass of the price prevalent here i before, namely, s20.67 an ounce. This is done in. part because of theldesira- :; .bi.ftys of. .maintaing uniformity in sthe tabular presentation of facts with the statements issued in preceding years. ,.and in part because at the time this summary was prepared many of the mine operators themselves did know what price they were to receive for thesr yOorious shipments of dust zand bullion. tThe actual money re esceiseds by. the miners7will greatly ex- ceed the amount is the gold output as stated above, possibly bysas murh as 15 per cent of the entire production.
 A preliminary estimate shows that the gold production WAS divided all most equally between lodes and placer mines, the difference in the amount produced by these two classes of mines being hess than 1 per cent. This compares with the proportion of A to 56 in 1882, shows that pronounced increase in: the proportion of gold won from lodes. Apparently there was a decrease of $1SO,00O in the out put of placer gold, probably as a re- suit of the unusually dry summer. but this decrease was much more than offset by an increase of over S729,000 Tn the lode production. Of the gold won from placers, nearly four-ffths was recovered by dredges, the re- mainder being recovered by hydraulic methods, by the use of mechanical seaoers, and by the mrre primitive method of groundsluicing and shovel ing gravel into the sluice boes by hand. The growing proportion of gold recovered by mechanical means is the inevitable result of the exhaustion of richer ground that can be profitably be exploited by expensive hand meth sods, and the application of large scale mechanical methods to leaner deposits
 The policy of purchasing newly mined gold at a premium, adopted by the Treasury during the summer, has greatly stimulated the exploration for gold and the development; ot gold mines, both placer and lodo. Many gravel deposits hitherto considered to be of too low grade to be attractive are now being re-examined as dredge possibilities. Similarly there is re- .newed interest throughout the Terri tory in gold odes and active develop ment with view to installing mill ing equipment is under way on many properties. All these projectts that require installatioon of elaborate me- schanical equipment take considerable time befora they become productive, and the poor results of increased price of gold will not appear in the figures of output until 1884 or even later
 The largest producing mine in the Territory is. that of the Alaska Ju- 9neau Golds Mining Company, near Juneau. This mine greatly increased its output aver that of 1882, no doubt as the result of milling higher grade ores in a newly developed portion of zsthe mine This recent development is expected to supply an increasing portion of the ore mill during the next year. AThe Hirst sChichagof and