since his return from the Yukon in September, 1897, Mr. Ogilvie reiterates his former predictions and emphasizes them. Ogilvie is as hardheaded a pioneer as ever tramped over a new country, and he apparently has never thought of turning aside from his official duties to chase the glimmer of gold; but his latest estimate is that at the rate the Klondike claims are now producing, and considering ground still to be worked, they will aggregate about $70,000,000 in the next three years. He remarks in his undemonstrative way: "I will select thirty claims on Eldorado Creek and will allow the owners $1,000,000 each and take what is over for myself and consider that I have an A No. I stake." Ogilvie says that when he left in June side-hill claims located on Eldorado, Hunker and Bonanza Creeks were in some instances prospecting as high as $6 to $8 a pan. "All the miners," he says, "concede that dirt with five cents in every shovelful, when it is three feet and upward deep, is rich, but on Bonanza and Eldorado when a man found only cents he was somewhat indignant. Unless he found $1 in every pan at least he was dissatisfied, and small wonder, for his neighbors were panning from $5, $10, $15 to $30 and $40 to the pan and often into the hundreds." Ogilvie also tells of some of the most recent rich strikes. He says: "On April 16 George Cormack, acting for Tagish Charlev sold one-half of a claim below Bonanza for $5000, one-tenth down, the balance to be paid on July 1, or forfeit the money and claim. Passing Cormack's on July 1, I called to see him and found the purchaser paying the balance of $4500. When the business was finished I asked the purchaser how he had succeeded. "Oh,' he said, 'pretty well.' I asked him if he had any objections to telling me what he did do. 'No,' he said; 'I drifted twenty-four feet long by fourteen feet wide and cleared up $8000.' I said to him: 'Now, I know the area of your claim, and assuming that your claim is all equally rich, we will see how much you will take out of it.' "The problem was very simple. Given the length and width, these multiplied together gives us the area in square feet. Divide this by result of multiplying twenty-four by fourteen, multiply the quotient by 8000, and the result in this case is the sum of $2,400,000. He said: 'My God, what will I do with all that money?' 'Don't worry,' I said, 'you will not be troubled to that extent. It is hardly possible that your claim will average anything like that in richness. Assuming it will average one-quarter of that, you will still have $600,000." " One of the striking features of the gold finds along the Yukon is the number of big nuggets which have come to light. The largest yet reported is declared to be worth $583.25. It was found on Eldorado Creek by a miner named Kut zon. The largest found along the Yukon prior to 1897 was taken out by one Conrad Dahl from Franklyn gulch March 26, 1894. It weighed exactly thirty ounces before being melted at the mint in San Francisco, and twenty-nine and forty-five one-hundredths ounces afterwards. It brought $491.45. This on the authority of Miner W. Bruce in his book on Alaska. Nuggets have been taken from Bonanza Creek worth $250 and $231, respectively. A miner named Clements found the smaller of these. The same miner took out four pans in succession, averaging $500 each, according to the report, one of them going as high as $775. Ever since the arrival of the Excelsior on July 14, steamers have been putting in at San Francisco, Seattle and Takoma at frequent intervals with gold on board. Up to September 20 the . Director of the Mint had been notified of the deposit of $1,000 000 in the mints at San Francisco and Helena. Not all the gold finds its way immediately to the mints. It is safe to estimate that between $4,000,000 and $5,000,000 had been brought down by the middle of September. CHAPTER II. THE KLONDIKE AND THE YUKON The richest yields of gold in the Yukon region have come from the territory embraced by the 138th and 145th degrees of longitude and the 62d and 66th degrees of latitude, between the upper ramparts on the Fast-steep bluffs frowning on a picturesque bend in the river, and Fort Yukon on the west. The greatest extent of gold |