The Daily Alaska empire., 1941-01-01

sive. The total value of the gold produced in Alaska from the begin- ming of recorded mining in 1880 to l the present is estimated at S561 ,3ll, : 900.
 Types of Deposit
 Gold in Alaska comes from two distinctly different types of deposits -pacers and lodes. In the placers ] the gold is recovered from gravel or ether urconsclidatsd deposits; i'll 1 the lodes it occurs in the solid rock CT vein matter. In 1940 the propor- ticn of gold produced from deposits of these two types is estimated to have been about Fl to 29 or ST. sl2000 firm placers and ST 7,463 000 from lodes. This may be compared with the ratio that obtained in 1889 when about 60 percent came from the placers and 31 percent from the lodes
 Lodcs
 In lG40, as in the past, the great CT part of the lode gold from Alaska came from properties in southeast Alaska notably those near Juneau and on Chichagof Island, with lesser amounts from smaller producers widely scattered throughout that region Preliminary estimates indi- cate that in l940 about 65 percent of the lode gold came from this region "a lesser proportion than in 1859, when it yielded about 70 percent.
 The second district, in the value Of it's lcde-gold production was the Willow Creek district, at the head oi Cook Inlet. near the southwestern 1 Hanks of the Talkeetna Mountains. The output of this district seems to have increased decidedly in l940 over that of 1899 and probably accounted | for somewhat more than 9 percent of the total lode-gold production of the Territory.
 In the Yukon region the princi- pal lcde-gold district is that near ! Fairbanks, where the combined pro- duction from a number of small mines and prospects puts that dis trict in third place. In addition to these districts with large production, score of smaller lode mines were active in other Alaska areas.
 Properties of this sort occur in the Prince William Sound region; in the Copper River region; in Renal Pen insula, including the Nuka Bay, Moose Pass, and Girdwood districts; in the Chulitna district, at the head of the Susitna Basin; in the Kan tishna district, situated in the northern foothills of the Alaska :, Range; in the Nixon Fork district of the Kuskokwim region, in the Ma besna district, near the head of Panama River; and even at such re- mote points as in the vicinity of Meme, in Seward Peninsula. With the exception of the mine in the Kantishna district, the production from these smaller lode mines seems to have been approximately at the same or at lower rate in 1940 than in the preceding year.
 Placers
 The great increase in output of placer gold in 1940 was due to the increased activity in placer mining as a result of which number of new projects began operations, and many of the older properties showed increased outputs. Although the output for 1940 sets a high record of achievement, it is not regarded as so unduly high that it cannot be maintained or bettered in the near future. In fact, throughout the Ter ritory new placer mining enterprises were under way which had not yet become fully productive, and none of the larger deposits of the older operations showed signs of being worked out. The Yukon region, in- cluding 16 principal productive min i ing districts and scores of small camps throughout it's extent, con- 1 tinued to lead in the output of plac- CT gold, the value of which is eS- l timated at more than $11 ,636000. Second in the list was Seward Pen insula, with principal districts, which had an estimated output of placer gold worth more than $4,722,- GOO. These regions were followed, in the relative order of their estimated placer production, by the Kusko- kwim, Cook Inlet-Susitna, Copper River, northwestern Alaska and southeast Alaska regions.
 Dredges Important
 Of the gold won from placers, by far the largest amount was recover ed by dredges, of which there were 48 in operation in various parts of Alaska, This number does not in- clude one dredge in the Goodnews district of the Kuskokwim region that was engaged primarily in min ing placer platinum metals. The gold dredges appear to have mined about 67 percent of the total gold recover ed through placer operations in l940. Of these dredges g were in Seward Peninsula. in the Nome, Bluff, Council, Fairhaven, Koyuk, Kougarok, Port Clarence, and Solo, mon districts; p were in the Yukon region, in the Fairbanks, Circle, Fortymile, Hot Springs. Iditarod,