GEOLOGY OF THE KLONDIKE GOLD FIELDS.[1]
By ANGELO HEILPRIN,
LATE PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY AT THE ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA, FELLOW OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.
A Bit of Norway in Alaska.—Cascade near Skaguay.
The gold fields of the Klondike or Troandik district, as officially designated, lie along or immediately about the waters, whether direct or tributary, of the Klondike, an eastern affluent of the Yukon, which discharges into the "father of northern waters" at the site of Dawson. The Klondike itself, whose upper waters are as yet only imperfectly known, seemingly carries but little gold, the main quantity of the precious metal and that which has made the region famous being contributed by one of its southern arms, the Bonanza, and by a tributary of this, the Eldorado. Hunker Creek, draining a mountainous district several miles to the eastward of the Bonanza, and like it a southern affluent of the Klondike, finds promise of a wealth but little if at all inferior to that of the Bonanza. In a broader or more popular sense, the Klondike region not only embraces the special district so designated in the books of the Gold Commissioner, but also the entire tract which heads up to the sources of the streams that have before been mentioned, and thereby, with Quartz, Sulphur, and Dominion Creeks as tributaries of Indian River, takes in the greater portion of the Indian River mining district, and with Baker, Reindeer, and other creeks on the west, the official districts indicated by these names as well. With this limitation the region roughly defines an area about forty miles square, whose northern boundary lies somewhat to the north of the sixty-fourth parallel of latitude, and on the west reaches to within about thirty-five miles of the international boundary, the one hundred and forty-first meridian of west longitude.
This area of approximately fifteen hundred square miles, which but little exceeds that of Rhode Island or of the county of Cornwall in England, may be broadly characterized as being gently mountainous, with elevations of five hundred to fifteen hundred feet, and in the highest parts of about twenty-two hundred feet. Its lowest depression is the valley of the Yukon, which, in itself occupying a position about fourteen hundred feet above the sea, gives to these points absolute elevations of three and nearly four thousand feet. Dome Mountain, or, as it is frequently designated, simply "The Dome," and less often "Solomon's Dome," "King Dome," and "Mount Ophir," appears to be the culminating point of the entire region; and its prominent position at the water parting of Bonanza, Hunker, Sulphur, and Dominion Creeks makes it a noble figure in the landscape, and the most interesting single feature to the prospector and miner. No absolute determinations for altitude have as yet been made for it, but when crossing the summit it seemed to me that it could not be much under four thousand feet, and I believe that Mr. Ogilvie gives to it about thirty-five hundred feet. The landscape which this mountain dominates is surpassingly beautiful, and I know of no finer view from similarly low mountains than that which this one commands. The sharply incised wooded valleys of the different streams that head up to it tear the mountain into projecting buttresses, and in the ridge that leads off from it southwestward contracts it to the extent of forming for half a mile or more a narrow backbone or saddle. In this respect it reminded me much of Mount Katahdin, in Maine. On a clear day the distant main mass of the snow-capped Rocky Mountains is sharply outlined against the northeastern sky, a most impressive setting to the verdant slopes that trend off toward it, only to disappear in the belt of plain that separates the two mountain systems. I was unfortunate in not getting the full benefit of this view, as at the time of my first crossing the atmosphere was very cloudy, and on the second it was so surcharged with smoke from forest fires in the valleys of Gold Bottom, Quartz, and Sulphur Creeks that hardly more than the foreground was visible.
A succession of five or six knobs runs out from the ridge to which reference has been made and which trends off in the direction of the head waters of Eldorado, and these, together with the main Dome, are sometimes spoken of as the "Seven Domes," but they have no particular significance in the orographic detail and can not even be said to be clearly defined to the eye. Dome Mountain is held in a respect bordering almost on veneration by the Klondikers, inasmuch as it is generally thought to be the mainspring of the gold supply which is contained in the streams that fall off from it, and this means nearly all the good and the promising streams of the entire region. And, in truth, there is for the moment no way of absolutely disposing of the miner's suppositions, nor can the circumstance that little or no gold has yet been found in place either on or in the mountain be given much value in the discussion of the probable origin of the gold, inasmuch as the same negative condition confronts us in a study of the rocks of all other parts of the same and adjoining regions. Assuming that alluvial gold is in the main a derivative from reef gold, it is certainly strange that streams flowing in well-nigh opposite directions, and yet rising within very short distances of one another, should be so largely charged with gold, unless they have obtained it from a common source; nor can the fact, as received and reported by most miners, but of the full import of which I have not yet fully made up my mind, that the different streams carry different classes of gold, be argued away as having no significance in this connection. Claim holders profess at most times to be able to distinguish between Eldorado gold and that of Bonanza, between the gold of Bonanza and that of Hunker or Dominion, and so on; and there is no question that marked differences in color and in the contours of the coarse flakes and nuggets do present themselves, and even in narrower limits than has here been outlined. Thus, the gold from French Hill, abreast of Claim 17 on Eldorado, has a distinctiveness that is largely its own, and hardly follows the gold of the rest of the Eldorado tract; and the same is true of the gold of Skookum Hill in its relations to that of Bonanza, and also of that of Victoria Gulch. Moreover, the recent assays that have been made by the Bank of British North America and the Canadian Bank of Commerce, in Dawson, of the gold of the different creeks and gulches show plainly that marked differences as to fineness are distinctive qualities—at least they appear to be such at the present time. Thus, while Eldorado and Bonanza gold generally assays but about $15.50 or $15.80 to the ounce, Dominion gold shows as high as $17.80, and Hunker close to $18.50; the gold of Bear Creek, a minor tributary of the Klondike, is reported to actually give $19.20 to the ounce, falling only behind the almost pure specimens that have been reported from American Creek and Mynook, and to which a valuation of nearly $20 has been given. If these assumed facts continue to be proved true, then they must argue in favor of a distribution of gold from largely localized spots or areas, a conclusion that is also pointed to by a number of other circumstances. On the other hand, there are some facts which point in quite the opposite direction, and some of these will be referred to later on.
None of the mountains of the region even approximates the snow line, which would here probably occupy a position not much below six thousand feet, and on the northern face perhaps even rise to seven thousand feet. Not a vestige of snow was seen by me when crossing the Dome, not even in the most sheltered hollows, a condition that at first strikes one as strange, considering that in so many parts of our own mountains of equal or less elevation snow may be found lingering through a long period of the summer months. But here the greatly protracted hours of summer daylight and heat, together with the correspondingly diminished period of night, when a regelation might take place or melting at least could be arrested, have a marked influence in dissipating the winter's snows and ice when these are not particularly heavy. I did not find the August heat quite so intense on the mountain tops as I had been led to suppose that it would be, but there was quite enough of it to satisfy an ample vegetation and to make heavy garments in walking more than a luxury. Unfortunately, my thermometer was away from me at this time, and as sensation in this dry northern climate is so difficult to gauge by the standard of the mercurial index, I shall not hazard a guess as to the actual reading.