Show PLACER MINING IN THE KLONDIKE WRITTEN FOR THE MINING REVIEW BY G CHESTER BROWN E EM M san francisco cal april 10 in the year 1895 two sturdy prospectors acques tin and Carni carmack ack wandered nv from circle city into the dreary waste known as the abe klondike while a few men had wandered up lip and down the yukon river in the vicinity of dawson none had tried to find pay gravel but when carmack made placer locations on el dorado and bonanza creeks the alaska pioneers began to sit up and take notice yet it was some before any one had faith in the new diggings the claims were designated as being a certain number above or below discovery for instance number 6 above meaning the sixth claim above discovery during the years of 97 and 98 the real rush was on and at one time dawson davson boasted of over inhabitants the conditions to overcome to reach this region in the winter time were severe indeed for the famous Chil chilcoot ecot pass had to be climbed the formation is practically all a character really quartz porphyry with no contacts of any kind the gold in the streams seems to have been washed from this porphyry and is not water worn to any extent before the discovery of the so called benches all prospecting citing consisted in sinking shafts to bedrock bed rock on the side of the streams or where here the old gravel channels had be been en formed this method was pursued on el dorado bonanza and other streams the benches were discovered by some iome swedes who finding all the claims on the creeks located went up to the low hills on each side of the water ways and began to dig they panned the richest dirt diric of all and soon everybody started to tunnel into the hillsides hill sides some of this ground yielded over to the pan these benches rise where the klondike and yukon rivers meet with the temperature at times of 60 degrees below zero and all supplies had to be carried by hand many lives were los blosl in trying to cross this range of mountains in summer the trip from white horse was ma made in boats dawson is situated at the junction of the yukon and klondike rivers on a flat having an area of some two miles some of the business firms established their houses on the south side of the klondike river so that the city is divided into two sections the north and the south side with the above mentioned stream as the dividing line the pioneer relied entirely on wood as a means of thawing out the frozen ground so as to get at the pay dirt this was a very slow process only one half a foot being thawed in a day the hole or shaft was about 4 feet square the idea of thawing with steam was wag introduced during the rush days the steam is played against the ice by means of steam jets or points which are driven into the frozen ground and are shifted from time to time gradually from the streams to an elevation of to feet one swede named anderson andersen took out over from these benches in one year which he spent in the diance halls and is now working in a lumber yard in tacoma for per day the principle streams that yielded the yellow metal were the following el dorado bonanza ophir sulphur dominion excels swish cristo Ala hambra doolittle bear and hunker the richest were el dorado bonanza dominion sulphur and bear bear creek is being worked with a dredge and pays big returns this stream is one of the smallest in the district all these streams empty into the klondike river the richest and best known hills hill were bunker and gold gold hill above dominion creek is still yielding good returns bunker hill I 1 is also rich and both hydraulic and tunnel methods are used the great drawback has been the se scarcity arc of water the pay is removed during the winter and the ground washed during the summer it is not uncommon to see the gravel piled to a height of feet the klondike river which flows west has not been mined due to the swift nesse of the current it has a maximum width of one burter mile and is deep in places A very small watercourse water course is called a pup and these have been rich the total length of this gravel channel is about ten miles the width one mile bedrock which consists of a blue clay shale has a depth of from twenty to io fifty feet in places a second bedrock bed rock or hard pan is found which also yields some values the plan outlined by the guggenheim m syndicate under the name of the yukon goldfields Gold fields means the consolidation of all the claims into one group and the developing of water power to operate the holdings this company now controls all the good claims in this region the ditch for hydraulic purposes is over forty miles long iong and delivers miners inches of water at the discharge the source is 12 anille river an electric plant on this river has also been built to generate power to operate the dredges bunker hill will be worked with giants and the tailings will be run over boughs of trees called cribs as the dredge laws of the dominion of canada are very rigid the day for the small miner in the klondike section is over and it will be known as a one company camp the police service offered by the north west police is excellent and even during the great excitement perfect order was maintained tied the trip to dawson in either summer or winter is most enjoyable and is well worth the time to pay avisia a visit to this land G IESTER CHESTER CI BROWN E M |