THE GOLD SANDS OF CAFE NOME. 641 



extending beyond Sjnrock on the west and, with interruptions, to 

 Nome Kiver on the east. The full extent of the auriferous sands 

 remains unknown, however, and report claims for them reappear- 

 ances throughout the entire coast as far as Cape Prince of Wales. 

 The season's work gave easy and lucrative employment to perhaps 

 fifteen hundred, mostly needy, prospectors, who realized on an aver- 

 age certainly not less than fifteen dollars per day, and many as much 

 as sixty, seventy, and eighty dollars. It is claimed, and I have little 

 reason to doubt the truthfulness of the statement, that from a 

 single rocker, although operated by two men, one hundred and 

 fifty dollars had been taken out in the course of nine hours' work. 

 It is also asserted that two men realized a fortune of thirteen 



Erecting a Steam Pump ^A'ome). 



thousand dollars as the result of their combined season's work, and 

 two others are said to have rocked out forty-five hundred dollars 

 in the period of a month. Women have, to an extent, shared 

 with men the pleasures of " rocking gold from the sea," and their 

 application in the toils of the sea plow, with booted forms, rolled- 

 up sleeves, and sunbonnets, was certainly an interesting variation 

 on the borders of the Arctic Circle from the scenes one has grown 

 accustomed to at Atlantic City or Newport. 



The placer deposits of the Nome district are in the form of 

 shallow, largely or mostly unfrozen gravels, which occupy vary- 

 ing heights, partly in disrupted or overhanging benches, of the 

 valleys and gulches which trench the slate and limestone moun- 

 tains. Perhaps the most favored ones are those of Anvil and 



TOL. LVI — 52 



