"One of our passengers who is taking home $100,000 with him has worked one hundred feet of his ground and refused $200,000 for the remainder, and confidently expects to clean up $400,000 and more. He has in a bottle $212 from one pan of dirt. His pay dirt while being washed averaged $250 an hour to each man shovelling in. Two others of our miners who worked their own claim cleaned up $6,000 from one day's washing.
"There is about fifteen feet of dirt above bed rock, the pay streak averaging from four to six feet, which is tunnelled out while the ground is frozen. Of course, the ground taken out is thawed by building fires, and when the thaw comes and water rushes in they set their sluices and wash the dirt. Two of our fellows thought a small bird in the hand worth a large one in the bush, and sold their claims for $45,000, getting $4,500 down, the remainder to be paid in monthly instalments of $10,000 each. The purchasers had no more than $5,000 paid. They were twenty days thawing and getting out dirt. Then there was no water to sluice with, but one fellow made a rocker, and in ten days took out the $10,000 for the first instalment. So, tunnelling and rocking, they took out $40,000 before there was water to sluice with.
"Of course, these things read like the story of Aladdin, but fiction is not at all in it with facts at Klondyke. The ground located and prospected can be worked out in a few years, but there is an immense territory untouched, and the laboring man who can get there with one year's provisions will have a better chance to make a stake than in any other part of the world."
SOME LARGE NUGGETS.
THERE ARE MORE WHERE THEY CAME FROM.
The largest nugget yet found was picked out by Burt Hudson on claim Six of the Bonanza, and is worth a little over $250. The next largest was found by J. Clements, and was worth $231. The last four pans Clements took out ran $2,000, or an average of $500 each, and one of them went $775. Bigger pockets have been struck in the Cariboo region and in California, but nowhere on earth have men picked up so much gold in so short a time. A young man named Beecher, came down afoot and by dog sledge, starting out early in March. He brought $12,000 to $15,000 with him. He was purser on the Weare last summer, and went in after the close of navigation in October or September. About Dec. 15 he got a chance to work a shift on shares, and in sixty days made his stake, which is about $40,000. He has purchased a claim or two. You will find more gold in circulation in Dawson than you ever saw in all your life. Saloons take in $3,000 to $4,000 each per night. Men who have been in all parts of the world where gold is mined say they never saw such quantities taken in so short a time.