brooks.J PLACER MINING tN ALASKA IN 1904. 21 
SUMMER OPERATIONS. 
The open season of 1904 was very unfavorable for placer mining in 
the peninsula. There was a great scarcity of water, partly because of 
the light snowfall during the preceding winter and partly because of 
the low precipitation in the early summer. Until July 10 more than 
half the mines were idle, but from the 10th to the 15th there were 
heavy rains, and by the middle of the month most of the plants were 
in operation. There continued, however, to be a shortage of water 
pi-actically throughout the season. Wages remained at $5 a day and 
board in most of the camps throughout the season. 
Summer mining, though limited to little over two months, was very 
successful, and much dead work in the way of ditch building was 
accomplished throughout the peninsula. 
The construction of ditches has gone on with feverish activity; 
probably upwards of a hundred miles have been planned or are under 
construction, and an equal amount is in use. 
It is a significant fact that while methods of mining involving ditch 
building are the favorites, on Anvil Creek the Pioneer Company has 
successfully introduced the steam shovel for handling gold-bearing- 
gravels, and the Wild Goose Company is stripping the overburden by 
hydraulic methods and handling the pay gravels by track and incline. 
Across the divide, on Glacier Creek, the Miocene Company is continu- 
ing its hydraulic elevator work, and has one of the best equipped 
plants in the district. Some work was done on the Hot Air bench 
close at hand by the "shoveling in" method. On Dexter Creek only 
one hydraulic plant was at work, but a number of claims were worked 
by the sluice-box method. Many other creeks were worked in the 
Nome district, but most of these only in a comparatively small way. 
Noteworthy are the hydraulic operations on Dorothy Creek, where an 
elevator was installed near the head of Nome River. On Hickey 
Creek, in the same region, a little hydraulicking was also done. A 
ditch has been completed which is to furnish water for mining bench 
gravels along the east side of Snake Valley, above the mouth of Glacier 
Creek. Plans have been formulated to bring water from the Kigluaik 
Mountains by a pipe line 60 miles in length to hydraulic the high 
benches along the seaward slope of the hills between Newton Gulch 
and Anvil Creek. Another company proposes to mine the coastal plain 
or tundra placers by hydraulic methods, presumably with the use of 
elevators. The Nome Arctic Railway has extended its track about a 
mile. 
There appears to be little of note in regard to the Penny and Cripple 
Creek regions west of Nome. Operations were continued throughout 
the season as far as the scarcity of water would permit. Here, too, 
ditch building is actively going on and planned. 
