purington.] CUSTOMS REGULATIONS. 243 
Difficulties of a peculiar nature are experienced by the placer miners 
of interior Alaska owing to the configuration of the international 
boundary between the Territory of Alaska and the British posses- 
sions. The town of Dawson, being the largest settlement of the inte- 
rior, is naturally the point where mining supplies are most easily and 
quickly obtained by the placer miners of the neighboring American 
camps of Birch Creek and Fortymile, the Rampart district, and others 
of the Yukon and Tanana. During the season of 1904 the rapid and 
to a certain extent justifiable development of the town of Fairbanks, 
on Tanana River, gave promise that this settlement would eventually 
become as well equipped to supply the needs of the Tanana miners as 
is Dawson. The American Yukon camps must, however, for a con- 
siderable number of years be locally dependent on Dawson as a source 
of supplies. 
Theoretically the miners are supposed to buy their mining sup- 
plies and machinery either at points in the United States or at towns 
on the Yukon in American territory. Such supplies, of course, if 
shipped down the Yukon, come through the Canadian territory in 
bond free of duty. In practice, however, owing to the necessity of 
obtaining supplies quickly, purchases are made in Dawson, and unless 
the supplies can be proved to be returned American goods the Amer- 
ican miner must pay duties to the United States custom-house at 
Eagle according to the rates given in the following list. Frequently 
duties must be paid even on supplies made in the United States and 
returned, since there is no manufacturer's mark by which the customs 
inspector can identify them. This especially applies to such impor- 
tant mining supplies as small parts of boilers, tubes, pipe, pipe fittings, 
elbows, T's, unions, grate bars, sledges, drill steel, picks, shovels, 
pump plungers, buckets, valves, small car wheels, strap iron, rails, 
bar and rod iron, and small castings. Even larger pieces, such as 
parts of lrydraulie giants, are frequently unstamped. These supplies, 
sept for sale by the machinery firms of Dawson, frequently pay 
customs duties both to Canada and the United States before reaching 
the Alaska camps. Dawson is frequently sought by the American 
bfiiners in the midst of the short season for the purpose of repairs 
to various mining machinery, it being the only place accessible on the 
Yukon where machine shops exist. It may easily be seen how burden- 
some on the miner is the imposing of a duty on his machinery which 
he brings back into American territory after repairs, and on which he 
must pay a duty because it has been improved or changed in foreign 
territory. 
