IT

I. THE EXODUS.

T took two and a half years from the first discovery of gold in California for the popula tion of that territory to increase from 15,000 to 92,000. At least 100,000 prospectors will advance upon Dawson City and its vicinity in the first six or seven months of 1898-less than a year from the time when the world first heard of the new gold sensation. The days of '49 and the great Ballarat rush two years later were peaceful compared to this. Another dramatic fact-this army of gold-hunters will expend for transportation and supplies before the end of the year fully $60,000,000-four times as much as the probable total output of Klondike gold!

In 1897, between July 17 and September 1, 8,886 passengers and 36,000 tons of freight were carried north from Puget Sound and British Columbia ports. Of this traffic the steamers bound for St. Michael took 1,248 persons and 12,000 tons of freight, while nearly all the balance went

number going through the Chilkoot; the rest --gamblers, tradesmen, and those who failed to get through are living this winter at the pass towns. These figures were nearly doubled before January 1, but all the late departures went to Dyea and Skaguay, and on account of

SCENE ON THE SEATTLE WHARVES AT A VESSEL'S DEPARTURE WITH PROSPECTORS.

to Dyea and Skaguay, a part branching off to Juneau and Wrangell. About 3,600 got over the passes in this time, at least 3,000 of the

THE EMBARKATION OF THE ARGONAUTS, AUGUST 17, 1897. (Showing the type of steamship used in transporting prospectors to Alaska.)

The

the late season halted for the winter at these places, both of which are growing with wonderful rapidity and fast becoming important towns. Dyea has passed Skaguay in inhabitants and promises to be the metropolis of Alaska. travel since January 1 has been the capacity of the ships, rates on them have advanced, and & further advance will likely be made as the crowds become greater on the approach of the "open season." Trade and transportation on the Pacific coast are convulsed; excepting in time of war, the century has seen no other such physical happening.

WHAT THE YEAR PROMISES IN DEVELOPMENT.

No statistics can be made of the 1898 exodus with any degree of accuracy, but from estimating the movement already well in motion, nearly, if not quite, 100,000 will try to get to the gold.

fields. It is doubtful-if my computations on the capacities of the vessels in the Alaskan trade are correct, and they are made from close inquiry -whether the transportation companies can carry so many and their supplies. This capacity shows 75,000 passengers from January to July, with two tons of freight to the passenger, when he will probably require only about one-half ton; and assuming that one-half of the freight will not go inland, but be used at Dyea and other coast points for building operations and transient consumption, would leave a supply tonnage sufficient for an additional 75,000 prospectors. A reduction of rates on the transcontinental roads, such as is threatened, will increase the number wanting to go, in which case the steamship people will manage it somehow, if tardily, even if it is necessary to continue sending steamers from the Atlantic.

This contemplates the situ

SKAGUAY TOWN, FIVE WEEKS OLD.

ation to July. After that it is believed by those who have looked ahead that a second and greater exodus will begin, for it is pretty certain that the first ships returning from the Yukon in July, and weekly thereafter for a time, will bring such stores of gold, such tales of individual fortunes, and such picturesque details that the larger army, waiting, will break their bonds of indecision. By that time there will be more ships and also better facilities for crossing the passes, and it is probable that these swarming emigrants (of whom three-fourths will go from the United States, about an eighth from Canada, and the rest from the British Isles) will be able to get through to the gold bottom creeks without serious delay, although they will, of course, be too late to do any prospecting till next year.

More ships are needed in the Alaskan trade; more boats on the Yukon and Stickeen rivers, overhead and surface roads on the short passes these are the things needed now, the things to be done at any cost, so they are done quickly, and the future will take care of the construction of more permanent lines and better facilities.

WHAT THIS STAMPEDE MEANS TO TRADE. What does an exodus of 100,000 to the Klondike mean to the business of the country? I

coast points, $5,000,000; ship companies, for transportation to Alaska, $10,000,000; and for the transportation of freight over passes and in Alaska, $15,000,000. This would represent only the actual needs of this many prospectors, and would cause a large increase in other business directly connected with it.

THE PROBABLE OUTPUT OF 1898.

Up to the time of the Klondike discovery the Yukon placer output as tabulated by the national authorities was, in grand total, $3,310,500. Almost the whole of this amount resulted from the work of the years 1886 and 1896. The output from 1880 to 1886 was comparatively insignificant.

The predictions for the receipts from the Upper Yukon in 1898 are guesswork, although the latest returned miners make it appear that it will be over

$20,000,000. But if it is $12,000,000, the most conservative estimate now offered, it will be wonderful, and will mean that with all the willing hands now there and the hundred thousand or more who get through in 1898 the yield for 1899 will approximate $50,000,000. After that it depends on transportation facilities to get people and machinery into the country to multiply the placer yields, and a few years more will probably see on the Yukon ranges the steady crunching of ore by stamp mills to add to the world's gold supply.

IS THERE STILL ROOM FOR PROSPECTORS?

The report from Captain Ray, United States army, from the interior, stating that no new placers have been discovered for eight months, is, doubtless true, but it is misleading. An explanation should go with.

Those who got to the Upper Yukon in the fall did so too late for prospecting, as elsewhere explained. If Captain Ray felt that the food situation demanded a warning to check the senseless ones going in unprepared, he was probably justified.

it, and if entirely fair it would say that all those on the Yukon last summer were occupied, not with prospecting for new discoveries, but to take

PROSPECTORS MOVING BOAT TIMBERS OVER CHILKOOT TRAIL.

up claims on the creeks known to be rich or prospecting creeks in the same locality, which no doubt Captain Ray classes as the old discovery.

The impatient intending prospector, however, who fears that the lands of gold will all be occupied unless he hastens, at the sacrifice of reason, to the gold creeks, should take a glance at a map of North America. Alaska embraces more square miles than twenty-one States of the Union, including the area from North Carolina northwest, taking in Illinois, and thence with the lakes to the North Atlantic coast of Maine. Think of all the rivers in these twenty-one States and of all the creeks that flow into all these rivers, of the branches that feed the creeks, and you have a placer area for prospecting to hide a half million men from one another by a distance to make each feel lonesome. And in the Klondike district there is the land, mainly mountains, feeding the streams, where years hence will be found rich quartz ledges that will again awaken the world. to the sight of a new Havilah.

To digress here in order to make this point clear. I met a miner last summer on a steamer who was returning from the Klondike, and studying the map we had laid before us, I asked what there was of water in that half inch of space between the mouth of the Klondike and Stewart rivers, as gold was plenty on both. He said: "Oh, eight or ten pretty big streams; you might call 'em rivers." Now, here was prospecting ground to employ and lose all the people who got through in 1897. They will not crowd, and the exodus

gold is so thick that you have to mix sand in to sluice it."

A COAST-LINE GREATER THAN THE CIRCUMFERENCE OF THE EARTH.

There are 11,000 islands along the coast included in this Alaskan area, and with the numerous inlets they give a coast-line 11,000 miles longer than the coast-line-Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf of the United States, or greater than the circumference of the earth. And consider the western limit of these possessions-there is the island of Attou, the farthest of the Aleutian group; its longitude is as far west of Seattle as Portland, Maine, is east of Seattle. No matter what reports may be spread on this subject, those who are contemplating a hazard of new fortunes along the mighty Yukon need not be deterred by a fear of crowding or richness of prospecting ground, as those who have a right to know express unbounded confidence in the richness of the placers, and with the exodus of 1897 lending willing hands with the pick, it may be that the results of 1898 will turn the world Klondike-mad and pale the memory of "Kaffirs" in Europe. Indeed, just as this is going to press there are reports from experts who have been over the ground thoroughly which make it quite within the things to be expected that there will soon be even richer.

TELEGRAPH CREEK.

THE KLONDIKE REGION AND THE ROUTES TO DAWSON CITY.

finds" than those already made-and it is not unlikely that these may be in Alaska proper. There can be no doubt that this northwestern portion of our continent is destined to undergo a remarkable development in the next few years.

There is serious work to be done in Alaska and the Northwest Territory-the making of a new world. There are many dissenters from this opinion, but their dissent will only serve the purpose of making all effort more effective, with more forethought and more care. It was much the same when the East first heard of the finding of gold on Captain Sutter's farm in California in 1849. Evidence was produced of the finds," and the plains and Rockies were cut into wagon roads, while the Indian lurked along the way and took a scalp now and then. This color of danger gave the Eastern press a chance to write lurid pictures of massacres and bloodshed and to place the price of a placer at death, but the movers' " wagons continued to turn their wheels toward the setting sun, and to-day the fruit of that movement makes the writer of a recent article point with much reason to our Pacific coast as the changing front of the world. In point of fact, many of the men who have made the longest. stays in that region are the hardiest-looking and finest physical specimens one could well find..

of 1898 will only go before to point the way to creeks that are liable to pay, even if they do not call for that joke of the miner's-where the

One argonaut after another has testified to the
tremendous muscular exhilaration experienced in
crossing the Chilkoot even with the thermometer
at all sorts of numbers below zero. And this is
simply natural. The freezing purifies the air
they breathe,
the cold stirs
the blood and
muscles to ac-
tion, the fare
is plain but
wholesome, and
there is that
great solitude
to feed the soul
and that feeling
of comradeship
-truth to your
fellow-man-
all of which
give health to
the body and
mind. There

A PICTURESQUE HABITATION ON CHIL-
KOOT TRAIL-WAITING FOR SPRING
TO PROCEED NORTH.

has been an honesty remarked in these first dwellers in the Yukon basin and in the travelers over the passes, and it is due to the absolute dependence of every man on the other for protection. It was the same in the early days of California, and changed and was lawless in the extreme while the Government was learning how to make the law effective, and it will be the same way on the Yukon, no doubt.

HARDSHIPS AWAITING THE GOLD-SEEKER.

Let no one start out, though, without clearly realizing that the Yukon country is still far from a pleasure resort. The camp life and work of the miner on the Klondike is one of great hardships, the climate and the long winter nights hedging it in with ever-present and harsh limitations. It is a routine of sleep until you wake and work, build fires and cook the brief fare until you sleep. The thermometer goes down to forty or fifty degrees below in January, and sometimes lower, while in the summer-time it will go to one hundred degrees above, and when the mercury is highest the mosquitoes will be the dens

est.

The latter are one of the greatest trials that the pioneer has to encounter, and the most hardened emigrant from the Jersey flats will be surprised at the vicious onslaughts of these little plagues, who have actually been known to drive the deer and bear into the water for shelter.

The wise prospector will pay especial attention to the matter of reaching his destination in time to get comfortably settled and build his house before the long winter sets in. Tents are used for camping until a permanent location is made,

HOW THE MINERS LIVE.

The best fire is one built on a square piece of masonry two feet high, much like a blacksmith's forge, and the smoke from this feeds through a pipe, like an inverted funnel, which hangs from the center of the roof, and is fixed to be raised or lowered. About this fire the miners sit in their idle hours, often the meals are eaten off its edge, and many a game of played across its corners.

California Jack" is This open fire in the center of the room is an idea probably copied from the natives. The latter not being so sensi. tive to smoke let it escape through an opening left in the roof, like their tepee, or cone-shaped tent of poles and mud, being constructed with the apex of the cone left open for the smoke. plies, or sacks of flour, meal, bacon, beans, coffee, salt, and the few luxuries, are stored in the same room and jealously guarded. Their shrinking bulk is watched with fear, while the miners declare that the gold is most carelessly

THE CHILKOOT SUMMIT IN WINTER.

The sup