Show ALASKA FIELDS DESERTED although traces of gold were discovered in the yukon valley as far back as 1869 it was not until twenty years ago that the discovering of large deposits of coarse gold along the forty mile tributary of the yukon below dawson began to attract adventurous spirits from all over the world and par ticul arly from the united states says the butte mont miner but the gold rush to alaska never accomplished for the country what the rush of the forty biners accomplished for california it is true that the prospectors opened up the country and attracted attention to its vast mineral resources but owing to the climate there was little to hold them up there after the supply of easily mined gold become exhausted in california the climate held not only those who found gold but those who composed the vast army of the in 1899 the population of dawson was vas but today it is less than 2000 the california towns affected by the gold rush of about seventy years ago however have grown among the most prosperous and populous of the state this after all is the lasting good which gold rushes accomplish those who remember the wild tales few of which were true that lured men of small means into expeditions to the klondike which left them penniless and sometimes broken in health will also recall the warnings about the living conditions that prevailed in alaska at that time and the slender opportunities for work other than that connected with the hazardous pursuit of gold one story which happened to be true was that two men had cleaned up gold to the value of in twenty seven hours another true story concerned a man who made out of a claim eighty six iffet by feet the fact that he died a few years later in poverty was usually omitted in 1898 the total output of gold was in 1900 it had risen to and since then has declined in 1908 the total output was ony and since then hydraulic mining and dredging have about doubled that output but the once prosperous gold country is now practically desolate at bennett the town lying at the head of lake bennett where the gold seekers began their long journey by water miles to dawson city nothing remains to show that the town once boasted a population of |