Alaska is
bounded on the north by the Arctic Ocean, and the Arctic circle runs
right through the Yukon country. You can imagine therefore that it is
terribly cold, and that the ground is frozen nearly all the year round.
The rich pay-dirt in which the gold is found lies from eighteen to
twenty-five feet below the surface. It would not pay the miners to wait
for the short warm season when the frost is out of the ground to make
their harvest; so they have found a plan to get at the gold all the year
round, no matter how hard or frozen the earth may be.
They build great fires on the top of the gravel, and fix them so that
they shall burn all night. When morning comes about eighteen inches of
the ground beneath the fire is found to be thawed out. This surface is
shovelled away, and another fire built on the gravel where it is frozen
again.
They keep right on in this slow and tedious way, until finally the
pay-dirt is reached.
The yield from these new gold-fields is something wonderful. It is
greater than anything ever recorded in the history of gold mining.
[Illustration: ALASKA: YUKON VALLEY AND GOLD FIELDS.
(The State of Pennsylvania is inserted to show comparative size.)]
One miner, who is a thoroughly experienced man, declares that he is
absolutely amazed at the amount of gold that has already been produced.
He says that the work has only been commenced, and that this present
find which is setting people crazy is nothing to the gold that will be
discovered as soon as the miners really get to work.
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