210 GRAVEL AND PLACER MINING IN ALASKA. [bull. 263. 
LABOR. 
The following table (14) shows the average wages paid for labor 
in the mining districts of Alaska and adjacent Canadian territory during 
the summer of 1904. When the prices for winter work were available 
such have been added. The prevailing wages have been placed under 
the names of the districts as these are generally known, it being 
understood that the name of the nearest town, as, for example, Nome, 
stands for the creeks in the vicinity. Timbermen, carpenters, black- 
smiths, and others whose pay is generally higher than that of ordinary 
laborers in the United States, are rarely paid more in Alaska. In dis- 
tricts where steam-thawing methods are employed engineers include 
pointmen. Hoistmen are not classed as skilled laborers, and where 
special prices for engineers obtain the men are usually in charge of 
large engines or pumps. 
Two shifts are worked on most of the mines, especially in the sum- 
mer. In hydraulic operations at night only one-third or one-fourth 
as many men are employed as on the day shift. In steam -thawing 
operations, where thawing is done at night, one or two pointmen and 
a fireman on the night shift generally take care of all the thawing, 
which will employ from 10 to 20 men in excavating, tramming, hoist- 
ing, and washing during the following day shift. 
Ten-hour shifts are the rule throughout the northern placer fields. 
In large hydraulic operations the pipemen, as in other regions, 
generally work twelve hours. At only a few places were men seen 
working an eight-hour shift. At one of these, where men were shov- 
eling into sluice boxes, it was proved by actual measurement of the 
ground that the number of yards shoveled per shift per man was 
greater than on adjacent claims where ten -hour shifts were in practice. 
In one instance on Ophir Creek, in Seward Peninsula, two eleven- 
hour shifts were worked, the men being paid 50 cents an hour and 
board. Experience has proved that the eight-hour shift for hard 
plvysical work is most economical in the operations in Alaska, where 
a large number of men are employed in shoveling and where every 
moment of the short season is valuable, and it would seem that the 
division of labor into three shifts of eight hours cheapens rather than 
increases the cost of handling material. 
In some of the camps of Seward Peninsula a hospital fee of $2 
per man per month is charged. This gives the laborer the services of 
a competent physician in case of sickness. Alaska is a singularly 
healthy country at all times of the year, and, although detailed statis- 
tics are not available, the proportion of deaths and illness to the total 
population would seem to be remarkably small. 
