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Show MINING IN THE ARCTIC. The gold miners of Alaska are gradually working north. With placer gold extending further north into the Arctic region, the day may come when the miners will be staking ground withing sight of the North Pole, such is the persistence of the average prospector. The latest discoveries in Alaska are in the Kobux districts, direct-. y north from Nome, the streams of which flow into the Arctic ocean. The miner is being followed by railroads. ' The Copper River road is to build north into the Tanana, or Fairbanks, district. There was a time when Fairbanks was an almost inaccessible camp. Now it is to be brought within a very short ride of the south Alaska coast, where Bteamers make regular trips at all times of the year. The gold mining of the Tanana has proved sufficiently extensive exten-sive to justify the expenditure of millions by the Morgan-Guggenheim interests in extending their road to that part of Alaska. The estimated value of the gold output of the Fairbanks district in 1910 was $6,100,000; the value in 1909 was $9,650,000. This falling fall-ing off is duo to the fact that many of the richest placers have been mined out and that no efective work has been accomplished toward mining the gravels of lesser value. Plans for dredging some of the shallower creeks have been accomplished. Meantime many of the most enterprising operators have turned their attention to prospecting auriferous quartz veins. Here, as in Seward Peninsula, there are very large bodies of auriferous gravels whose gold content is too low to per mit its recovery by the methods now in use There was some scarcity of labor at Fairbanks in the spring, owing to the exodus to the Iditarod, and on ?ome of the creeks the water supply was inadequate.. These conditions affected the gold production to a certain extent. It is estimated that about 130 placer mines were operated in the Fairbanks district during 1910; this is a falling off of over 50 per cent from the average of previous years. As the gold production has declined only about 35 per cent, the output per mine has increased.. in-creased.. An average of about 1,200 men were employed in this production pro-duction through the year.. Among the new developments were the operations on Fish Creek, where little mining had boen done previously. pre-viously. Tho pay streak on Goldstream Creek was also traced farther downstream. t |