The Nome daily nugget., 1935-02-09

The Department of the Interior an nounces, through an advance state ment prepared by Philip S. Smith, of the Alaskan branch of the Geological Survey, that the minerals produced from Alaska mines in 1884 had an estimated value of $16,793,000, as compared with $l0,366000 in 1883 This brings the value of the miner al output of Alaska since 1880 to more than $680,0O0,000 The figures for 1884 are preliminary estimates and subject to revision. The final figures will appear in the Geolog- ical Surveys annual report on the mineral resources, of Alaska, now in preparation.
 General Conditions
 A low price for all the mineral commodities other than gold contin- ued through the year, though the prices were somewhat higher than in 1883. A serious disruption of ship ping facilities, brought about thru strikes and labor difficulties in May and June hampered the sending in of necessary machinery, equipment, and supplies for many of the mining camps and so had an indirect though very real effect in reducing the out put of minerals. On the other hand, the climatic conditions that affect mining, such as length of season and precipitation, were on the whole favorable throughout the camps in central Alaska, which yield the great CT part of the placer gold. In south eastern Alaska and in western AL aska, notably in most of Seward Peninsula, the season was unusually dry, so that the supply of water for mining purposes was scarce and many of the mines had to curtail or suspend operations for part of the season. This condition affected not only the placer mines, which are or dinarly very dependent on water supply for most of their operations, but also some of the smaller lode mines that use water in milling their ore.
 Gold
 The gold production of Alaska in 1884 is estimated to have been wor- tn $16, 105,O00, based on the current price of $35 fine ounce This value exceeds that for the production of any other year subsequent to 1916 In this comparison, however, it should be remembered that in all the preceding years the established price of gold has been $20.67 an oun- ce, so that the new price is about 69 percent greater than the old price. The total value of the gold produc- tion of Alaska from the beginning of productive mining in 1880 todate is estimated at nearly $45,000,0O0.
 As is well known, the gold pro- duced in Alaska comes from two distinctly types of deposits, placers and lodes. In the placers the gold is recovered from gravel or other un- consolidated deposits, whereas in the lodes it occurs in the solid rock or vein matter. In 1884 the proportion of gold produced from deposits of these two types is estimated to have been about 56 to A, or $8,996, 900 from placers and $7,109,000 from lodes. This is the same ratio as in 1882, but in 1883 the ratio was 54 to 46. As has long been the case, the bulk of the lode gold produced in the Territory came from mines in southeastern Alaska, of which the mine of the Alaska Juneau Gold Mining Company, near Juneau is by far the largest. However, while this region still maintained first place in production of gold from lodes, its lead over other Alaska districts ap- pears to have been lessened, for in 1884, it is estimated to have sup piled only 6s percent of the Alaska