300 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the best? Well, undoubtedly that is the better way to do, if they are 

 to do only one — to '' hold fast that which is good." And yet it 

 is a blessed thought that every brave, fearless effort which men make 

 toward finding out the truth, with every help that they can get 

 from reason and a knowledge of the past, is an effort after God. 



GEOLOGY OF TPIE KLONDIKE GOLD EIELDS.* 



By ANGELO IIEILPRIIS, 



late pr0fe88or of geology at the academy of natural sciences of philadelphia, 

 fellow of the royal geographical society of london. 



THP] gold fields of the Klondike or Troandik district, as officially 

 designated, lie along or innncdiately about the waters, whether 

 direct or tributary, of the Klondike, an eastern affluent of the 

 Yukon, which discharges into the " father of northern waters " 

 at the site of Dawson. The Klondike itself, whose upper waters 

 are as yet only imperfectly known, seemingly carries but little 

 gold, the main quantity of the precious metal and that which has 

 made the region famous being contributed by one of its south- 

 ern arms, the Bonanza, and by a tributary of this, the Eldo- 

 rado. Hunker Creek, draining a mountainous district several miles 

 to tiic eastward of the Bonanza, and like it a southern affluent of 

 the Klondike, finds promise of a wealth but little if at all inferior 

 to that of the Bonanza. In a broader or more popular sense, the 

 Klondike region not only embraces the s])ecial district so designated 

 in the books of the Gold Commissioner, but also the entire tract 

 which heads up to the sources of the streams that have before been 

 mentioned, and thereby, with Quartz, Sulphur, and Dominion 

 Creeks as tributaries of Indian Biver, takes in the greater portion 

 of the Indian Biver mining district, and with Baker, Bcindeer, and 

 other creeks on the west, the official districts indicated by these 

 names as well. With this limitation the region roughly defines an 

 area about forty miles square, wliose nortlicrn boundary lies some- 

 what to the north of the sixty-fourth parallel of latitude, and on 

 the west reaches to within about thirty-five miles of the interna- 

 tional boundiii-v, tlic one hundred and forty-first meridian of west 

 longitude. 



This area of approximate ly fifteen hundred s(piare miles, Avhich 

 but little exceeds that of Rhode Island or of tlic county of Cornwall 

 in England, may be broadly characterized as being gently moun- 



* From Alaska and the Klondike. With thirtv-five fiill-pa<xe illustrations and three maps. 

 By Prof. Angelo Heilprin. New York: I). Appleton and Company. Pp. 326. Price, .'?!l. 75, 



