METHODS AND COSTS OF GRAVEL AND 
PLACER MINING IN ALASKA. 
By C. W. Purington. 
INTRODUCTION. 
Owing to the fact that numerous requests have been received by the 
Geological Survey during the last three years for information regard- 
ing the cost of operating gold-bearing alluvial deposits in Alaska and 
the best means of working the claims in the various districts, the 
preparation of a report embodying such information, in so far as is 
possible from data at present obtainable, was. decided on. 
I was requested, in the spring of 1904, by Mr. Alfred H. Brooks, 
geologist in charge of the division of Alaskan mineral recources, to 
proceed to some of the most important placer fields of Alaska during 
the open season of 1904 and to collect data for an economic report. 
I was asked also to visit the neighboring British fields of Atlin and 
Klondike for the purpose of comparison. Mr. Sidney Paige was 
assigned as my assistant for the field and office duties, and has rendered 
most efficient aid during the entire progress of the work. 
In the north the Juneau, Atlin, Klondike, Birch Creek, Fairbanks, 
and Seward Peninsula districts were successively visited, and on the 
return a short stay was made at the gold-dredging field of Oroville, 
Cal. (See PI. .II, p. 14, general route map.) Data concerning the 
districts not visited — the Porcupine, Chistochina, Cook Inlet, Forty- 
mile, and Rampart, and remote parts of Seward Peninsula — have been 
collected from reliable sources, especially from members of the Geo- 
logical Survey who have made investigations in those portions of 
Alaska. 
ITINERARY. 
A start was made from Seattle May 26. Five days, from May 30 to 
June 3, were spent in the vicinity of Juneau, Alaska, where the placers 
f Silver Bow basin and the power plant of the Alaska-Tread well mines 
ere inspected. Six days, June 11 to 16, inclusive, were spent in the 
itlin district of British Columbia, where ten plants were visited on 
Pine, Willow, Boulder, Spruce, and McKee creeks and Gold Run. 
Twenty-two days, June 25 to July 16, inclusive, were spent in the 
Klondike district of the Yukon Territory, where 32 operations were 
13 
