APPLETONS' 



POPULAR SCIENCE 



MONTHLY. 



MAY, 1899. 



ALASKA AND THE KLONDIKE. 



A JOURNEY TO THE NEW ELDORADO. 



By ANGELO HEILPEIN, 



professor of geology at the academy of natural sciences of pliiladelphia, 



fellow of the royal geographical society of london. 



I.— IN BY THE WHITE PASS AND OUT BY THE CHILKOOT. 



HARDLY two years ago the names Dawson and Klondike were 

 entirely unknown to the outside world, and geographers were 

 as ignorant of their existence as was at that time the less learned laity. 

 To-day it may be questioned if any two localities of foreign and un- 

 civilized lands are as well known, by name at least, as these that mark 

 the approach to the arctic realm in the northwest of the American con- 

 tinent. One of those periodic movements in the history of peoples 

 which mark epochs in the progress of the world, and have their source 

 in a sudden or unlooked-for discovery, directed attention to this new 

 quarter of the globe, and to it stream and will continue to stream thou- 

 sands of the world's inhabitants. Probably not less than from thirty- 

 five thousand to forty thousand people, possibly even considerably 

 more, have in the short period following the discovery of gold in 

 the Klondike region already passed to or beyond the portals of what 

 has not inaptly been designated the New Eldorado. To some of these 

 a fortune has been born; to many more a hope has been shattered in 

 disappointment ; and to still more the arbiter of fate, whether for good 

 or for bad, has for a while withheld the issue. 



In its simplest geographical setting Dawson, this Mecca of the 



Note. — For most of the photographic illustrations the author is indebted to the work of 

 Curtis, Barley, and E. A. Hepg; especially to the last-named gentleman, of Skaguay and 

 Dawson, is he under obligations for permission to use several of the copyrighted views. 

 VOL. i.v. — 1 



