KLONDIKE AND YUKON GOLDFIELD—CADELL. 365 
Lake Bennett, a narrow and picturesque sheet of water between 
high mountains, is 27 miles long and its outlet at the northern end 
is one of the tributaries of the Great Yukon River. The sixtieth 
parallel, that of the south end of the Shetland Islands, crosses the 
lake some miles from the deserted town of Bennett at its head. At 
the time of the gold rush there were 5,000 people at Bennett in 
houses, huts, and tents, and the fact that a wooden Presbyterian 
church was built there shows that more than 10 righteous men were 
to be found among that surging and sordid crowd. The church is 
now almost the only building besides the railway station that is 
standing, but it is boarded up and falling into decay. The photo- 
graph I had time to make during our short halt for lunch shows this 
little ecclesiastical pile with its spire pointing to the sky adding a 
human touch to the grand but desolate picture (pl. 1). 
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Fic. 1.—Scenery at summit of White Pass, on Yukon Railway. Altitude, 2,800 feet. 
The original diggers here got into boats and canoes, and navigated 
their frail craft through the lakes and rapids on the remaining 531 
miles of their adventurous journey to Dawson City. The whole dis- 
tance from Skagway to Dawson is 571 miles, and the first part of the 
journey is covered by 110 miles of railway. The line runs at the foot 
of the steep granite mountains along the shore of Lake Bennett to 
White Horse, a few miles above the tame but beautiful Lake Laberge, 
where safe navigation begins. At the north end of Lake Bennett the 
country bécomes less rugged, and the mountains lower and more 
rounded, and there are broad valleys covered with glacial drift and 
herbage. ake Laberge is a little over 2,000 feet above sea level 
and the whole fall to Dawson is about 1,000 feet, which gives an 
average gradient in 435 miles of a little more than 2.5 feet per mile. 
There are no serious declivities below White Horse, and only at one 
place—the Five Finger Rapids below the Tantalus coal mine— is there 
much risk to travelers during the season when the river is open to 
navigation by flat-bottomed, stern-wheel steamers. 
