144 ALASKAN MINERAL RESOURCES IN 1906. 
corresponds also with the richest part of the first or present beach 
whose greatest values were taken from the neighborhood of the moutl 
of Snake River and from sands to the east toward the mouth of Noim 
River. This area lies directly south of the mineralized area fron 
which it is believed that the gold has been chiefly derived, and it is tin 
locality toward which weathered material from the near-by hills mail 
properly be expected to migrate, since it lies immediately between 
them and the sea. There appears, therefore, to be warrant for th<t 
assumption that in the future, as in the past, the most valuable placer! 
will be found within the limits given. One apparent exception is to 
be noted in the old beach placers of Hastings Creek. There is a pos 
sibility, however, that these may be the result of more than one 
concentration, that they may contain the gold of several old beacll 
lines converging toward Cape Nome, and that the gravels from which 
they were derived may not originally have carried any very notable 
amount of gold. 
GENERAL DEVELOPMENT. 
Some improvements affecting in greater or less degree nearly the 
entire region were carried on during the summer and merit notice 
Among them is the extension of the railroad formerly known as the 
Wild Goose, later as the Nome Arctic, and now as the Seward Penifflj 
sula Railway. In 1905 this road was extended from a point east oj 
the summit of King Mountain into the low saddle north of it, near the 
part of the Miocene ditch known as the "Ex." In 1906 the road wa& 
continued northward and eastward through the valleys of Nome 
River and Salmon Lake and thence down the east side of Kruzgamcps 
or Pilgrim River. When the Survey party left Nome in October the 
roadbed was completed and the tracks were laid nearly as far as 
Lanes Landing, on Kuzitrin River. During the coming summei 
(1907) the road is expected to reach Kougarok River, thus opening 
for development a region which to this time has been one of the most 
difficult of access on Seward Peninsula. 
The construction of the Seward and Pioneer ditches, which were 
begun in 1905, was carried forward in 1906, so that now both delive 
water on the tundra north of Nome. The Seward ditch, the upper o 
the two, .has an elevation of about 275 feet on Dry Creek. The 
Pioneer ditch is about 60 feet lower. There are, then, three ditches 
the earliest being the Miocene, which supplies water on Glacier 
Anvil, and Dexter creeks, bringing water from the upper Nome Rivei 
duainage area to the vicinity of Nome. 
A wood-stave pipe line to carry water from upper Grand Central 
River into the Nome River basin is under construction by the Wild 
Goose Company. The greater portion of the trench in which the 
