FHE (JOLD PLACERS OF FORTYMILE, BIRCH CREEK, 
AND FAIRBANKS REGIONS, ALASKA. 
By L. M. Prtndle. 
INTRODUCTION. 
GEOGRAPHIC RELATIONS. 
The Yukon-Tanana interstream area, which includes from 35,000 
:o 40,000 . square miles, is naturally delimited by the Yukon and 
Fanana rivers, which for some distance 1 flow northwesterly in nearly 
parallel courses about 100 miles apart. At the Arctic Circle, how- 
ever, the Yukon makes its great bend to the southwest, and, 200 miles 
farther on, near the one hundred and fifty-second meridian, in the 
central portion of Alaska, is joined by the Tanana (PL I). The 
irea is thus irregularly shaped, its longer diameter extending north- 
vest and southeast. On the east it is delimited by the international 
xmndary — the one hundred and forty-first meridian — along which it 
extends to the south somewhat beyond the sixty-third parallel; on 
he north it just crosses the Arctic Circle (PI. XYI, in pocket). 
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. 
Some of the earliest prospecting in the interior w T as done in this 
irea, and portions of it are comparatively well known. The dis- 
'overy of placer gold on Fortymile in 1S86, and the later discoveries 
n 1893 in the Birch Creek and Rampart regions, led to a rapid 
levelopment of the creeks tributary to the Yukon. During the sum- 
ner of 1902 placer gold was found in quantities of economic impor- 
ance about 200 miles above the mouth of the Tanana and a few miles 
lorth of the river. This led to an influx of people and (he formation 
)f a center of population on the Tanana side of the area. 
There are at the present time in the Yukon-Tanana country four 
videly separated regions which are producing placer gold — the 
Fortymile region, the Birch Creek region, the Rampart region, and 
;he Fairbanks region. The Yukon and the Tanana are the main 
routes of travel, and from these rivers the gold-producing creeks are 
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