KLONDIKE AND YUKON GOLDFIELD—CADELL. 371 
panied by a local movement of the land and an upheaval of the coast 
line to the extent of 47 feet in one place. 
In the Klondike and Dawson instance the movement was one of 
upheaval of the whole region to a height of at least 700 feet. There 
were ancient river valleys with sluggish streams, where the white ter- 
race gravels slowly accumulated and in whose bottoms the grains of 
gold derived from the waste of the small quartz veins in the neighbor- 
ing hills became concentrated in streaks and pockets. When the 
uplift began the rivers acquired fresh velocity and started at once to 
deepen their old courses energetically and to cut out new and nar- 
rower valleys in their old flood plains. They swept away a great deal 
of the white gravel, but some of it was left undisturbed, with the gold- 
bearing streak beneath. The process went on till the rivers had not 
only cut out deep trenches in the white gravels, but had penetrated 
far below them into the underlying rock. The gold in the white 
gravels, perhaps with other gold derived directly from the neighboring 
schistose rock, sank to the bottom of the later alluvium and was con- 
centrated again in a newer pay streak, while the lighter débris was 
mostly transported to the distant sea. The climate was mild enough 
for vegetation to flourish, on which many large animals browsed in 
peace and comfort, or were preyed upon by more predaceous denizens 
of the northern wilds. 
To come down to more modern times, adventurous prospectors 
threaded their weary way over this little-explored region, and these 
hardy pioneers of empire first began to find traces of gold in the 
Yukon Valley about the year 1869. In 1881 gold was found in the 
gravel banks and bars of the Big Salmon, and other discoveries were 
made in the Lewes, Pelly, and Stewart Rivers soon afterwards. The 
first discovery of coarse gold was made on the Fortymile, another 
tributary of the Yukon below Dawson, in 1886, and with this evidence 
of the auriferous character of the district prospecting received further 
encouragement. In 1894 fresh discoveries drew the miners into Klon- 
‘dike Valley, but it was not till 1896 that the great find was made, of 
which I shall now give a short account. 
In 1894 Bob Henderson discovered gold in Quartz Creek, a tributary 
of Indian River, at a place about 6 miles south of the Dome, and he 
went over the ridge to Gold Bottom, another gully, a tributary of 
Hunker Creek, where he discovered more gold in 1896. He told 
George Cormack, another prospector in the district, of his luck, and 
Cormack paid him a visit, but on the way back Cormack, or one of his 
companions, while stopping for dinner, accidentally turned up some 
remarkably rich dirt at Bonanza Creek, and immediately pegged out 
a claim without ever telling Henderson of his own far greater luck. 
Prodigious quantities of gold were soon found at this spot, and pros- 
pectors flocked in from all quarters. Many of them made fortunes 
