80 GRAVEL AND PLACER MINING IN ALASKA. [bull. 263. 
winch running the self-dumping carrier, and is lowered by- its own 
weight. The fines (the material passing through the trommel) fall 
directly on gold-saving tables similar in design to those used on many 
gold dredges. These tables (see PI. XII, A), which are fed by two 
4-inch pipes, are six in number (three on each side of the trommel) 
and have a gold-saving surface of 80 square feet. They are fitted 
with expanded metal and cocoa-matting riffles, which prove to be very 
efficient, the greater part of the gold being caught near the upper 
end of the first table. (See PI. XII, B.) The material then passes 
to a longitudinal sluice which consists of eight boxes 22 inches wide 
furnished with Hungarian riffles constructed of 1- by 3-inch inclined 
cleats capped with three-sixteenths-inch iron. The tailings are 
removed by a steam scraper and elevated upon a dump. The winch 
for the scraper is 30 horsepower and elevates 400 4-wheelbarrow units 
15 feet in ten hours, seven-eighths-inch cable being used. It will be 
seen that the above double elevation of material must be costly, using, 
as it does, not only much power, but also additional men on separate 
winches. 
The greater part of the water for sluicing, 300 inches, is brought 
by flume from Bear Creek. The remainder, amounting to 100 inches, 
is raised from the pit by a series of pumps. A No. 6 centrifugal 
pump raises the water to the foot of the washing apparatus, from 
which it is lifted 25 feet by a No. 8 centrifugal and used for sluicing. 
A 35-horsepower engine does the latter work. An additional pulsoin- 
eter pump is occasionally used in the pit. 
The power plant contains two 60-horsepower boilers and one 50- 
horsepower boiler, wood being used for fuel. Sixty men are employed 
about the plant, the daily wage of the laborer being $4 and board. 
The men work two 10-hour shifts throughout the working season. 
The above-described plant will undergo considerable change in the 
near future, improvements designed to effect greater economy being 
contemplated. It is planned to haul all material excavated a distance 
of 2,000 feet by locomotive, in trains of 6 cars, to a washing plant 
on the banks of Klondike River, where the ground is 8 feet below 
the upper edge of the pit, and then wash it by gravity water from 
Bear Creek. High water in the Klondike will greatly economize the 
handling of tailings, and it is hoped the full capacity of the shovel 
may be utilized. 
A machine run on principles radically different from those described 
above is illustrated by a steam shovel on Eldorado Creek, in the Klon- 
dike region. In this case the use of a tramming system is entirely 
avoided by so arranging the plant as to allow direct dumping by the 
dipper into the sluice boxes. In this case the shallowness of the 
ground and the use of a 50-foot boom permit such an arrangement. 
The work lies in the crev.k bed proper and cuts are made longitudi- 
