Manchester Memoirs, Vol. xlii. (1898), No. 10. 3 



metal, much easier to separate from the wash dirt, than 

 the fine gold particles of even a rich silt. Therefore, the 

 prospectors push up to the higher parts of the creeks, 

 where frost and snow are even more excessive, food is 

 wanting, and every sort of transport becomes extremely 

 difficult. In some places, the miners melt the frozen 

 ground by fire, sink shafts and throw out the pay-dirt for 

 washing during the short summer. But, as the number of 

 persons who endure all these hardships is small, only the 

 richest places are worked, and every new and better find 

 causes the desertion of the old place. 



In 1886 Stewart River was abandoned when Forty 

 Mile Creek was discovered, and in 1896 Forty Mile Creek 

 was quitted for Klondike. The consequence is a very 

 incomplete harvest. It is improbable that hydraulic 

 arrangements in this severe climate will pay, and the 

 establishment of quartz mining is likewise held improbable 

 by authorities. 



The production from the placers of all the Alaskan river 

 valleys in 1896, together with the Yukon creeks on British 

 territory, but without those on Cook's Inlet on the sea- 

 board, was estimated by the Alaskan Mining Record at 

 2,170,000 dollars, and by Mr. Goodrich at 1,700,000 

 dollars, showing how difficult it is to obtain trustworthy 

 figures from districts of this kind. 



In comparing the various fluctuations which the 

 world's production of gold shows since the early ages, I, 

 in 1877, thought myself entitled to suppose that these 

 fluctuations would continue during the next few centuries 

 until the time of final exhaustion. This supposition was 

 erroneous. The facilitation of every sort of communica- 

 tion which has taken place during these 21 years, the im- 

 mense expansion of the white race, the magazine rifle, the 

 increased experience of the prospector, the fabulous credulity 

 of the mass risking thousands after thousands in ;^i shares 



