BONNtFIELD AND KA NT1SI1 N A REGIONS. 213 
the present streams. Although fair pay has been found in places on 
some of the creeks, it would seem that if the high gravels carried 
noteworthy values the placers derived from them would be much 
richer than they have yet proved. All the work lias been accom- 
plished on a small scale under adverse conditions. Most of t he mining 
is being done above the timber line. The work is hampered and in 
some places brought to a standstill by lack of water. The soft nature 
of the bed rock in some of the creeks means a tremendous amount of 
material that clogs the work and complicates the situation caused by 
lack of water. In general it may be said that the quantity of gold is 
not such as to overshadow the economic factors of water supply, 
character of bed rock, presence or absence of bowlders in the gravels, 
timber resources, and transportation, but that in every case these are 
the determining factors in the situation. 
IvANTISHNA PLACER REGTON. 
GENERAL DESCRIPTION. 
The rich shallow diggings discovered in the Kantishna region in 
1905 were found to be more local than at first supposed, and the 
results of 1906 were unequal to expectation. During the fall of 1905 
there was much travel by steamer from Fairbanks. Passengers and 
freight were carried at $40 a piece and $50 a ton, respectively, and 
landed at Roosevelt, on McKinley River, or at Diamond, 60 miles 
above the mouth of the Bearpaw. The town of Glacier also was 
established 12 miles from Diamond, at the mouth of Glacier Creek, 
about midway between the steamer landing at Diamond and the 
placers of Glacier Creek. During the winter of 1905-6 there was 
much travel between all of these places and the creeks, and the winter 
trail from Fairbanks up Cahtwell River to the road house at the cross- 
ing and thence overland was also used extensively. The month of 
February found many already on the back trail. During the summer 
of 1906 the town of Roosevelt, situated as it was remote from the 
creeks across an 18-mile stretch of swampy tundra, became practi- 
cally deserted, and in the fall the many empty cabins of Glacier and 
Diamond testified with depressing emphasis to the decadence from the 
activities of the previous year. 
The Kantishna placers, about 30 miles directly north of Mount 
McKinley, are in an outlying ridge somewhat apart from the main 
range and separated from it by high bare hills, which form the fore- 
ground to this portion of the range. This ridge trends northeast and 
southwest, and its most prominent summits have altitudes of 4,000 to 
4,700 feet. To the southwest it abuts against the foothills; to the 
northwest it descends abruptly to the level of long, flat slopes that 
extend for miles from the base of the hills into the extensive flats of 
the Kantishna Valley. 
