38 TIN" DEPOSITS OF THE YORK REGION, ALASKA. [no. 229. 
The coast line of the York region is not broken by any inlet or harbor 
suitable for seagoing vessels. Such craft are obliged to lie a safe 
distance offshore, while landings of freight or passengers are made 
with lighters or small boats through the surf, as at Nome. During 
much of the time the sea is smooth and such landings are easy, but 
frequently violent storms continue for several days, which would 
destroy lighters and endanger the ships themselves. In fair weather 
vessels could be loaded in safety from piers, but the possibility of 
maintaining docking or other loading facilities along this coast is 
questionable on account of the movement of great ice floes that cover 
Bering Sea during the long winter. 
Port Clarence, the only harbor and safe anchorage for large vessels 
in Seward Peninsula, is a bay 25 miles southeast of York, and, should 
the tin deposits be worked on an extensive scale, this harbor is easily 
accessible. It is a large body of comparatively deep water, nearly 
circular in outline, and cut off from the sea by a long, low sand spit, 
which terminates in Point Spencer at the entrance to the bay. 
Along the north side of Port Clarence there is si shallow lagoon, 
separated from the bay by a narrow sand spit. This lagoon extends 
several miles west of the entrance to Port Clarence. It can be made 
use of for transporting ore in lighters and small boats. The Coast 
Survey charts show deep water suitable for large vessels along the 
north shore near the entrance to the bay, and docks and wharves 
would naturally be built there. On the south side of the entrance, 
at Point Spencer, a safe anchorage near shore is made use of as a 
coaling station by whalers en route to the Arctic Ocean. It is 
reported that the ice leaves this part of Port Clarence first, at the 
opening of summer, and that vessels have made use of this anchor- 
age before they were able to approach the coast at Nome. It is 
therefore possible that Point Spencer might be the most convenient 
shipping point for the York region. The product of the mines could 
be brought to the coast of Bering Sea by tram roads or wagons, 
and, in the summer time, ferried across to Point Spencer, or in 
the winter hauled over the ice either by traction engines or by 
horses. Should production be sufficient to warrant it a railroad can 
easily be built from some point on the north shore of Port Clarence to 
Lost River and up its valley. Should the mines on Buck Creek war- 
rant the building of a railroad the Lost River line could be extended 
across the divide at the head of Lost River to Mint River, and thence 
follow around the northern foothills of the York Mountains to Buck 
Creek. This road could again be extended from Buck Creek to the 
locality at Cape Mountain. It would probably not be practicable to 
build a road along the coast from the mouth of Lost River to York. 
During the summer season there is sufficient water in the streams of 
the region to furnish power for all the machinery required in mining 
