1 84 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



formerly, it is still large, and Cripple Creek possesses a record for gold 

 production rarely equalled. The total production up to 1910 was over 

 $200,000,000. 



The gold of Cripple Creek occurs mostly in veins, though some 

 small placer deposits were worked in the early days. Instead of one 

 great vein as at the Comstock lode in Nevada, there are very many 

 smaller veins, representing ore bodies formed in fissures in the choked-up 

 neck of an old volcano. Erosion has altered the appearance of the vol- 

 canic vent, but the geological structure proves the origin of the region. 



About the time of the discovery of the Cripple Creek district, new 

 gold deposits were found at Leadville, in Colorado. We have seen that 

 gold placers were worked in this region in 1859, but were soon ex- 

 hausted, and that in 1874 silver-lead ores were discovered and again 

 brought a boom to the region. With the fall of silver, Leadville had 

 lost much of its prosperity, but again picked up on the discovery of 

 gold ores shortly after 1890, About this time, and later, many mines in 

 the San Juan region and elsewhere in southern Colorado also became 

 important gold producers. 



Following quickly in the train of the fall of silver, news came of the 

 discoveries of gold in the Klondike region. The Treadwell and other 

 mines in southern Alaska had long been worked, but in the far north 

 mining had not been very active. More or less gold had been mined on 

 the Yukon and its tributaries for many years, and from 1886 to 1895 

 interest was somewhat stimulated by discoveries on Forty-Mile Creek, 

 Koyukuk Eiver, Mission Creek, Mynook Creek, Tanana Eiver and many 

 other streams flowing into the Yukon; but the production was not very 

 great and the industry was carried on in a desultory way. With the 

 discovery, however, of gold on the Klondike Eiver in 1896, this apparent 

 apathy was turned to the wildest excitement. 



The Klondike Eiver is in the Yukon Territory of Canada and flows 

 into the upper Yukon Eiver east of the Alaska border. Gold was dis- 

 covered there on August 17, 1896, and a stampede to the new district 

 followed which will always be memorable for the hardships encountered 

 and the frightful mortality among those who took part in it. By 1898 

 over 40,000 people were camped on the Yukon, at the mouth of the 

 Klondike, while many had died on the way, frozen on the White Pass, 

 or on the long winter trail from Edmonton, or starved in the forest, or 

 drowned in the Yukon, or shipwrecked in the Pacific. Whole parties 

 often perished and nothing was heard of them until perhaps years later 

 their outfits were found on the wilderness trails. Dawson City came 

 suddenly into existence on what a few months before had been a barren 

 river bank, and took its place as the metropolis of the gold regions of 

 Arctic America. Soon after the first discovery of the Klondike gold, 

 the deposits on various smaller streams in the vicinity, such as Bonanza 



