74 Professor Henry A. Miers [Feb. 28, 



half its value, and that 60 per cent, is an ordinary rate of interest 

 for loans. Labourers' wages are 21. a day. Although almost any- 

 thing required may be purchased in Dawson, all goods have been 

 imported at great expense into a country which of itself has pro- 

 duced nothing but gold and wood. The freight-rates on the White 

 Pass route are about 6 cents a pound, and 23Z. a ton may be paid 

 from Vancouver to Dawson. 



The mining camp is situated to the south-east of Dawson at a 

 distance of about 13 miles. The productive area is about 30 miles 

 square, and is bounded on the north by the Klondike River, on the 

 west by the Yukon River, and on the south by the Indian River. 

 The district is a gently undulating upland or plateau, attaining an 

 average height of nearly 3000 feet above the Yukon, and intersected 

 by deep flat-bottomed valleys which radiate from its central and 

 highest point, a rounded hill named the Dome. The valleys are 

 separated by hog-backed ridges ; the whole district is fairly thickly 

 wooded with spruce and poplar except on the summits of the ridges ; 

 the bottoms of the valleys are occupied by flat marshy bogs, and the 

 streams are rarely more than 10 feet broad. The bog, which is from 

 5 to 10 feet thick, is frozen at a short depth below the surface and 

 keeps the underlying gravel, which may be from 10 to 30 feet thick, 

 permanently frozen right down to the bed-rock. 



The principal streams are known as creeks ; the short steep tribu- 

 taries which flow into them as " gulches " ; and the streamlets which 

 feed these as "pups." The most important creeks are from 7 to 

 10 miles in length, and are productive over perhaps half their course, 

 so that there may be about 50 miles of richly productive gravel in 

 the district. I was informed that one stretch of 3J miles on El 

 Dorado Creek produced no less than 6,000, OOOZ. of gold. 



Recently constructed government roads lead from Dawson to the 

 camp and connect the various creeks ; they were being completed at 

 the time of our visit, and were still very rough or almost impassable 

 at some points among the creeks ; numerous rudely built but fairly 

 comfortable " road-houses " afford lodging to the traveller. A small 

 town of log cabins, known as Grand Forks, has sprung up at the 

 junction of the two most famous creeks. Bonanza and El Dorado, 

 and is inhabited by perhaps 1200 miners and others. There is 

 another small town named Cariboo on Dominion Creek. 



The creeks no longer present the dreary appearance of bog and 

 forest, which made them look so unpromising to the early prospectors ; 

 the hill-sides have been largely stripped of their timber, and the 

 valley bottoms are in many parts the scene of active mining opera- 

 tions and rendered unsightly by machinery ; the mining is also 

 carried on upon the hill-sides at a height of 300 or 400 feet, where 

 numerous adits penetrate the white gravel, and are marked by long 

 heaps of tailings which descend from them towards the creek. 



What little is known of the geology of the Klondike district can 

 be stated in a few words. The auriferous area is occupied by Palseo- 



