brooks] PLACER GOLD MINING IN ALASKA. 45 
difficult task, but during stormy weather it becomes well nigh impos- 
sible. After heavy machinery has been landed it is still a grave 
problem how to transport it from the coast to the mines. This involves 
the building of roads and, in some cases, the dredging of rivers. 
The region immediately tributary to Nome is better prepared to 
meet these conditions than the more isolated camps. The narrow- 
gage railroad, which runs from the beach to the head of Anvil Creek, 
makes the transportation problem at that particular locality a simple 
one. Roads, moreover, have been built to adjacent creeks from the 
railway, so it is now possible to handle heavy machinery. 
In Anvil Creek probably the most important development was in 
the auriferous gravels of the benches which are found on both sides 
of the valley. This gave a new impetus to mining, for the gravels in 
the creek bed itself were nearly all run through the sluices during 
the two previous years. The high-bench gravels, lying at altitudes 
of 500 to 800 feet above the sea, which were discovered in 1900, still 
continued to be developed. Some of these have great depth, and the 
extraction of the gold has been a difficult problem. 
The so-called "tundra placers," or more properly coastal plain 
placers, still continue to be worked, but their development has not 
been commensurate to their probable importance. It seems more 
than likely that the gravels which make up this coastal plain, in 
many places, car^ workable placers. These may be, in part, old sea 
beaches, or may be the channels of abandoned streams and rivers. 
The problem of handling large quantities of these gravels, which are 
a few feet above and below sea level, has not yet been solved. Most 
of the mining has been confined to shallow pits and trenches, and 
i the operations have been hampered by lack of means to handle the 
surface water. The extraction of the gold has been largely accom- 
plished by use of hand rockers. Winter mining has been carried on 
by means of petroleum and coal-burning steam thawers. With the 
aid of the thawer a pit is sunk to the pay streak, which is followed by 
drifting. The gold-bearing gravel is then hoisted to the surface and 
washed out during the open summer season. It is of interest to note 
that drills have been successfully employed in prospecting for the 
pay streak in the coastal plain gravels. The ground underneath the 
thick coating of vegetation is frozen throughout the year, but thaws 
to a depth of 2 or more feet where this coating is removed. If an 
economic method of mining these gravels in a large way and of 
extracting their gold contents could be devised, large profits would 
undoubtedly be made. 
During the four years which have elapsed since the discovery of 
the Nome placers, the gold seeker has gradually worked his way 
inland, so that now there has been some prospecting done over nearly 
the entire Seward Peninsula. 
During the last season gold mining was going on in the Nome region 
proper, in the Solomon and Eldorado River region, on the streams 
