Chief Moore of the weather bureau has made public a statement in regard to the climate of Alaska. In this statement Mr. Moore says:

"In the Klondike region in midwinter the sun rises from 9:30 to 10 a. m. and sets from 2 to 8 p. m., the total length of daylight being about four hours. Remembering that the sun rises but a few degrees above the horizon and that it is wholly obscured on a great many days, the character of the winter months may easily be imagined.

"We are indebted to the United States coast and geodetic survey for a series of six months' observation on the Yukon, not far from the site of the present gold discover.

ies. The observations were made with standard instruments and are wholly reliable. The mean temperatures of the months October, 1889, to April, 1890, both inclusive, are as follows:

"October, 33 degrees; November, 8 degrees; December, 11 degrees below zero; January, 17 below zero: February, 15 below zero; March, 6 degrees above; April, 20 degrees above. The daily mean temperature fell and remained below the freezing point (32 degrees) from November 4, 1889, to April 21, 1890, thus giving 168 days as the length of the closed season of 1889-90, assuming that outdoor operations are controlled by temperature only.

"The lowest temperature registered during the winter were: 32 degrees below zero in November. 47 below in December, 59 below in January, 55 below in February, 45 below in March and 26 below in April.

"The greatest continuous cold occurred in February, 1890, when the daily mean for five consecutive days was 47 degrees below zero. "Greater cold than that here noted has been experienced in the United States for a very short time, but never has it continued so very cold for so long a time. In the interior of Alaska the winter sets in as early as September, when snowstorms may be expected in the mountains and passes. Headway during one of these storms is impossible and the traveler who is overtaken by one of them is indeed fortunate if he escapes with his life. Snowstorms of great severity may occur in any month from September to May, inclusive.

"The changes of temperature from winter to summer are rapid, owing to the great increase in the length of the day. In May the sun rises at about 8 a. m. and sets about 9 p. m. In June, it rises about 1:30 in the morning and sets at 10:30 p. m., giving about twenty hours of daylight and diffuse twilight the remainder of the time.

"The mean summer temperature in the interior doubtless ranges between 60 and 70 degrees, according to elevation, being highest in the middle and lower Yukon valleys."

Winter Weather.-About the middle of August heavy frosts kill all vegetation, and the country begins this early to take on an arctic aspect. Furious gales begin to blow from the north, which continue with little cessation all winter. In September or October, at the latest, the river is frozen hard, and sleighing, as in the Arctic, is the only mode of travel in the country until the great apring freshets in May set the rivers free. As you can readily see,

the journey to the gold fields by this route is not only a very long one, but a very expensive one, and wholly impracticable for numbers in winter. The average miner and prospector must enter Alaskan fields by a shorter and more accessible route, even though the hardships encountered are greater.

Alaska Cold.-It is bitterly cold in arctic Alaska. There is no denying this. Forty degrees below zero for days at a stretch is not uncommon. But they have the same kind of weather in Northern Russia and one does not hear any plaints of hardships from there. Peary and other arctic explorers have spent whole winters hundreds of miles nearer to the pole without actual suffering. In Russia and other cold countries the people prepare for the long eight months' winter by building tight log houses in which they keep comfortable over their queer looking tile stoves which give an immense amount of heat from a small bunch of wood. The same thing will have to be done in the Yukon country. Frail tents are not suitable shelter in the kind of winters they have up there. It's too much like a man trying to get along with a linen duster for a topcoat. If the prospectors are well housed, well clothed, and well fed they can bid defiance to the cold, and those who are not able to secure these three important items should not tempt fate by making the trip.

Long Sunny Days.-There is literal as well as figurative sunshine in Alaska. Three months of summer seems like a short season, but when it is taken into consideration that the sun is on duty for nearly twenty hours a day, shining with torrid intensity, it may be readily seen that a great deal of fructifying warmth gets into the ground. Old Sol is no laggard in Alaska. He rises before 3 a. m. and keeps at work until nearly 11 p. m. The growing of a few hardy grains and vegetables and coarse forage in the central and southern sections is not an idle dream. The finest strawberries I ever ate were raised in the open air at Yakitat bay. Alaska will never be an agricultural country, but there is warrant for Commissioner Wilson's action in agitating the establishment of an experimental farm there. Under proper encouragement ample food for reinneer and hardy sheep and ponies can be raised. Reindeer are the natural cattle of the country. They haul freight and passengers surely and fast, their skins make warm garments, and the meat is good eating.

Dr. A. E. Wills. surgeon in British America, says: "The climate is wet. The rainfall last summer was heavy. Although there is almost a continuous sun in summer time, evaporation is very slow, owing to the thick moss, which will not conduct the heat. In consequence the ground is always swampy. It is only after several years of draining that ground will become sufficiently dry to allow the frost to go out and then only for a few feet. During the winter months the cold is intense with usually considerable wind

"A heavy mist rising from open places in the river settles down in the valley in calm, extreme weather. This dampness makes the cold to be felt much and is conducive to rheumatic pains colds, etc.

"Miners are a very mixed class of people. They represent many nationalities and come from all climates. Their lives are certainly not enviable. The regulation 'miner's cabin is twelve by four. teen feet, with wall six feet and gables eight feet in height. The roof is heavy earth and the cabin is generally warm. Two and sometimes three and four men will occupy a house of this size. The ventilation is usually bad.

"Those miners who do not work their claims during the winter confine themselves in these small huts most of the time. Very often they become indolent and careless, only eating those things which are most easily cooked or prepared. During the busy time in summer, when they are 'shoveling in,' they work hard and for long hours, sparing little time for eating and much less for cooking. This manner of living is quite common among beginners, and soon leads to debility and sometimes to scurvy. Old miners have learned from experience to value health more than gold, and they therefore spare no expense in procuring the best and most varied outfit of food that can be obtained.

"In a cold climate such as this, where it is impossible to get fresh vegetables and fruits, it is important that the most suitable substitute for these should be provided. Nature helps to supply these wants by growing cranberries and other wild fruits in abundance, but men in summer are usually too busy to avail themselves of these.

Land Infested by Disease.-"The diseases met with in this country are dyspepsia, anæmia, scurvy caused by improperly

cooked food, sameness of diet, overwork, want of fresh vegetables. overheated aud badly ventilated houses; rheumatism, pneumonia, bronchitis, enteritis, cystitis and other acute diseases from exposure to wet and cold; debility and chronic diseases, due to excesses. Venereal diseases are not uncommon. One case of typhoid fever occurred in Forty-Mile last fall, probably due to drinking water polluted with decayed vegetable matter.

"In selecting men to send to this country I beg to submit a few remarks, some of which will be of assistance to the medical examiners in making their recommendations. Men should be sober, strong

and healthy. They should be practical men, able to adapt themselves quickly to their surroundings. Special care should be taken to see that their lungs are sound, that they are free from rheumatism and rheumatic tendency, and that their joints, especially knee joints, are strong and have never been weakened by injury, synovitis or other disease.

"It is also very important to consider their temperament. Men should be of cheerful, hopeful dispositions and willing workers. Those of sullen, morose natures, although they may be good workers, are very apt, as soon as the novelty of the country wears off, to become dissatisfied, pessimistic and melancholy."

G. W. Yancy, of Seattle, who is interested in gold claims in the vicinity of Dawson City, says: "As far as the climate is concerned, it is cold in the winter season, which lasts from October to early May, but dry and free from wind. One can endure a temperature of sixty-five degrees below zero in the Klondike country as easily as Chicagoans stand a drop of the mercury to twenty degrees below. When the coldest spells are on the miners simply keep under cover and, as the weather doesn't remain extremely frigid longer than two or three days at a time, the gold diggers suffer none to speak of and lose but little time.

"I say with no hesitation that a man of courage, nerve and phys ical strength can make a fortune in Alaska. The greatest difficulty is found in traveling through the moss that covers the country. This moss thaws out in summer to the depth of a few feet and the gold seeker must be skilled in going around and about the treacherous cushions else he will be pitched headlong. A fall in this moss is quite dangerous, as a man quickly sinks out of sight and may be smothered ere he can arise.

"Still, after the long and fatiguing journey is over it does not take an expert to get the gold. Any man can dig it up, as one need only go down from six to eight feet and then begin tunneling. The frozen earth is thawed out and then washed.

"While next spring is the better time to seek the Klondike, I would not discourage anyone, for from the most trustworthy advices and information I know that the ultimate riches of the frozen north are yet but barely guessed at."

231x

Don'ts.-It is always understood that to a certain extent the country one goes to will in some valuable way contribute to the larder. Don't waste a sin le ounce of anything, even if you don't like it. Put it away and it will come handy when you will like it.

If it is ever necessary to cache a load of provisions, put all articles next to the ground which will be most affected by heat, providing at the same time that dampness will not affect their food properties to any great extent. After piling your stuff, load it over carefully with heavy rocks. Take your compass bearings, and also note in

your pocket-book some landmarks near

by, and also the direction in which they lie from your cache-i. e., make your cache, if possible, come between exactly north and south of two given prominent marks. In this way, even though covered by snow, you can locate your "existence." Don't forget that it is so.

Shoot a dog, if you have to, behind the base of the skull; a horse between the cars, ranging downward. Frees the trigger of your rifle; don't pull it. Don't catch hold of the barrel when 30 degrees below zero is registered. Watch out for getting snow in the barrel. If you do, don't shoot it out.

A little dry grass or hay in the inside of your mitts, next your hands, will promote great heat, especially when it gets damp from the moisture of your hands. After the mitts are removed from the hande, remove the hay from the mitts and dry it. Failing that throw it away.

If by any chance you are traveling across a plain (no trail) and a fog comes up, or a blinding snowstorm, either of which will prevent you taking your bearings, camp, and don't move for any one until all is clear again.

Keep all your draw-strings on clothing in good repair. Don't forget to use your goggles when the sun is bright on snow. A fellow is often tempted to leave them off. Don't you do it.

If you build a sledge for extreme cold, don't use steel runners. Use wooden, and freeze water on same before starting out. Repeat the process if it begins to drag and screech.

If you cannot finish your rations for one day, don't put back any part, but put into your personal canvas outfit bag. You will need it later, no doubt.

Take plenty of tow for packing possible cracks in your boat, also two pounds of good putty, some canvas, and, if possible, a small can of tar or white lead.

Be sure, during the winter, to watch your foot gear carefully. Change wet stockings before they freeze, or you may lose a toe or foot.

In building a sledge use lashing entirely. Bolts and screws rack a sledge to pieces in rough going, while lashing will "give." Keep the hood of your kooletah back from your head, if not too cold, and allow the moisture from your body to escape that way. When your nose is bitterly cold, stuff with fur, cotton, wool or anything, both nostrils. The cold will cease.

The man who knows little now will come back knowing more than he who knew it all before starting.

Don't try to carry over forty pounds of stuff over that pass, the first day anyway.

If your furs get wet dry them in a medium temperature. Don't hold them near a fire.

No man can continuously drag more than his own weight. Remember this is a fact.

In cases of extreme cold at toes and heel, wrap a piece of fur over each extremity.

Keep your sleeping bag clean. If it becomes inhabited freeze the inhabitants out.

Remember success follows economy and persistency on an expedition like yours.

White snow over a crevasse, if hard, is safe. Yellow or dirty color, never.

Don't eat snow or ice. Go thirsty until you can melt it.
Shoot a deer behind the left shoulder or in the head.
Choose your bank as far from tent door as possible.
Keep a fire hole open near your camp.

7

Mines Not at Dawson.-The impression seems to prevail that the mines are close to Dawson City. That is a mistake. The rich creeks are fifteen miles off. and it is a day's journey to them. The camp there is as pretty a place as one desires to see. The whit tents and huts of the miners are scattered along the banks of the creeks or built on the mountain side, as convenience or fancy dictated. Says an influenti 1 miner:

"I know of no place in the whole northwest, or in the world, for that matter, where a man with a litle capital can do so well. There is an opening for every kind of business, and I have no doubt that next season will see the town flooded with men of all calings."

H. S. Canfield has compiled the following Alaskan facts:
Alaska is two and one-half times as large as Texas.
It is eight times as large as all of New England.
It is as large as the south, excluding Texas.

It is as large as all of the states east of the Mississippi and north

of the Ohio, including Virginia and West Virginia.

It makes San Francisco east of our center.

Its coast line is 26,000 miles.

It has the highest mountain in North America.

It has the only forest covered glacier in the world.

The Treadwell is one of its greatest gold mines.

It has the best yellow cedar in the world.

It has the greatest seal fisheries.

It has the greatest salmon fisheries.

It has cod banks that beat Newfoundland.

It has the largest river in the world.

A man standing on a bank of the Yukon 150 miles from its mouth

cannot see the other bank.

The Yukon is twenty miles wide 700 miles from its mouth.

With its tributaries it is navigable 2,500 miles.

It is larger than the Danube.

It is larger than La Plata.

It is larger than the Orinoco.

It discharges one-third more water than the Mississippi.

The water is fresh fifteen miles from its mouth.

It has more gold in its basin than any other river.

Its color is beautifully blue to its junction with the White river, 1,100 miles above its mouth.

Alaska runs 1,500 miles west of Hawaii.

Yukon basin gold is estimated at $5,000,000,000.

The necessary eruptive force for the formation of great fissure veins is everywhere evident in Alaska.

Silk should be worn next the body, then woolen and then furs. Citric acid should be taken to prevent scurvy.

The food there produces rectal diseases. Take medicine.

Lima beans are good portable food.

Snow glasses should not be forgotten.

Nowhere are mosquitoes so numerous.

There are two kinds of poisonous flies.

There are no snakes

in Alaska.

Moose are plentiful. The flesh resembles horse flesh.

Capital of stock companies organized to do business in Alaska aggregates $200,000,000.

It is probable that in twelvemonths Dawson will be within four days of Juneau.

In central and northern Alaska the ground is frozen to a depth of 200 feet.

Snowfall in the interior is very light-six inches or so.

The heaviest rain and snow are on the southeast coast.

No land contains finer spruce timber.

In its low temperatures gold filling in toeth contracts and falls out. Use amalgam.

Men born in southern latitudes have become insane in the long dark.

Take a chess board and men. They prevent dementia.
The medicine chest should hold pills, pills, pills.

A temperature of 75 degrees below zero has been recorded.
When it gets lower than 50 there is no wind.

No shelter is needed except when the wind blows. At other times a sleeping bag answers all purposes.

Just below rapids ice forms only nine feet thick, and there fishing is done. In other places it will reach forty feet.

In the dark season twilight lasts six hours and almost any kind of work can be done.

Elk, cariboo and grouse are common and easily killed.

Don't eat snow or ice. Melt them. Else quinsy.

In low temperatures the inside of the throat sometimes freezes. This is locally called "frost burning."

For frozen fingers use cold water.

You can bathe only the feet and face.

Sweat under blankets in summer or get rheumatism.

In summer all land not mountain is swamp.

Underfoot is ice cake, overhead twenty-two hours' sun.

Everybody gets lice. Boil underclothing. Freeze sleeping bags.
Keep pores of skin open by rubbing body before sleeping.

An expert placer miner can pan dry.
Alaskan "dust" is as big as wheat.
Some gold is fine enough to float.

Wear silk gloves and then fur.

The Eskimo is virtuous, the Chilkat is not.

Canadian rapacity will drive the miners into American territory.

Canadian police are highly efficient.

Reindeer will be the future locomotives.

Alaskan dogs are wonderfully intelligent-the result of selection and heredity.

The natives eat much decayed fish.

They are all honest.

Thousands of miners from other nations will go.

A Chicago company leads in Alaskan exploration.

Hay grows as high as a man's head.

Hardy vegetables can be raised.

All streams show true gold fissures.

man

Take plenty of flour. Buy all you think you need, then buy more. Last winter a killed himself because he had five pounds of baking powder and no flour.

Under act of congress communities of miners can make their own laws.

No thief gets a fairer trial anywhere, nor any prompter execution.

Make caches on platforms six feet high Wolves.

It will pay you to wait a year or two. It costs $1,000 now and will cost $200 then.

All distances are gigantic. It is 2,000 miles from Sitka to Klondyke.

A boat leaving Dawson September 20 is chased to the mouth by

freezing water.

All wood in the Aleutian Islands grew on glaciers in Alaska.
Whole forests break into the sea.

Some streams are bridged by glaciers.

Some wood is beautifully polished by glacial action.

Avalanches in the interior are unknown.

Owing to dryness there is not much suffering from the cold.

Take a 40-80 rifle with telescope sights.

One small tribe makes $2,500 a year from silver fox skins. They are worth $250 each.

Exposed portions of the body freeze in three minutes.

Enough library: One Bible, one Shakespeare, Dictionary, Hill's Manual.

Snowshoes not needed in the mine country.

Buy mines from discouraged miners.

Trading companies will not carry goods for competitors.

Next year competition will bring down their prices 50 per cent. Meals on the boat up the river cost $1 each.

Men who have gone this winter to make their living sawing wood will not have time to say much.

On still days on the ice pack ordinary conversation may be heard a half mile.

In the extreme low temperature there is no wind.

The best part of any outfit is a chess board and a set of men. They stave off dementia.

Contents of a medicine chest: Quinine. Pills! Pills!

Hartshorn. Pills!

Dangers of the trip have been much exaggerated. Chilkoot pass itself is only 3,000 feet high. Western mountaineers laugh at such a height.

Gold in the African "Rand" has been estimated by government experts of three nations at $3,500,000,000. The Alaskan deposit is estimated at $7,000,000,000.

To an expert miner water is not a necessity. He pans dry. The Alaskan "dust" is very coarse, averaging a wheat grain in size. This makes easy panning.

The hand should be covered with a silk glove, then a woolen mitten and then a fur mitten.

Take plenty of salt, in salting down fresh meat and for other purposes it is very necessary in considerable quantity.

2312

The Klondike Placer miners are only gathering that gold washed off nature's great gold reserve in the Alaskan mountains. This dust is found in the gravel of the little streams. It comes from a formation called the conglomerate, which is incomparably rich in nuggets and particles of gold.

When the miners find it is no longer profitable to wash out the gravel they can attack the conglomerate, where they will be able to accomplish something by hand labor. Finally, there is the original source of gold, the veins in the hills. These must be of enormous value. They must lie untouched until the proper machinery for obtaining the gold is erected. A clear, scientific and authoritative explanation of the geological conditions of the Klondike and neighboring gold-bearing rocks is furnished by Professor S. F. Emmons of the United States Geological Survey. Professor Emmons says:

"The real mass of golden wealth in Alaska remains as yet untouched. It lies in the virgin rocks, from which the particles found in the river gravels now being washed by the Klondike miners have been torn by the erosion of streams. These particles being heavy, have been deposited by the streams, which carried the lighter matter onward to the ocean, thus forming, by gradual accumulation, a sort of auriferous concentrate. Many of the bits, especially in certain localities, are big enough to be called nuggets. In spots the gravels are so rich that, as we have all heard, many ounces of the yellow metal are obtained from the washing of a single panful. That is what is making the people so wild-the prospect of picking money out of the dirt by the handful literally. Mining Forms.-The "Forms" on the succeeding several pages relating to mining are adapted to the United States, though many of them are applicable to the territories. As changes are liable to frequently take place in legal regulations, it will be necassary for the miner to be on the alert and not depend too much on old law books of the past.