In Southeastern Alaska there are a number of organized mining districts where gold has been mined with success for years. Principally among these being the Sitka mining district, which includes Silver Bay and the region about Sitka; the Harris mining district, including the mines in the vicinity of Juneau; the Unga mining district, including the Island of Unga, and the Douglas mining district which includes the great mountain of gold quartz on Douglas Island. Then there is the Cleveland mining district, in the Kenai Peninsula and about Cook's Inlet; the Portage Bay mining district, including a section of the Alaska Peninsula about Portage Bay, Pavloff Harbor, Herendeen Bay and Port Muller; the Nyack mining district, including Kadiak Island; the Sunrise mining district, which takes in a portion of the Cook's Inlet region; the Unalaska mining district, and many others.

The Sitka Mining District was organized more than twenty-five years ago and it was here the first gold was mined in Alaska.

In the summer of 1873, William Dunlap, Edward Doyle, P. Burns and Frank Maloney were prospecting for gold in the vicinity of Sitka. Late that fall, one of the party found colors of gold on a small stream near the head of Silver Bay, about ten miles from the village, and float quartz containing gold was subsequently found in the same stream. The lode was discovered shortly afterward by the same parties, from which a number of fine quartz specimens, valued at about $300.00, were taken. This is the first discovery of gold reported in Alaska.

A company was organized to work the mine, its charter bearing date, January 30, 1877, and in 1879, a 10-stamp mill was erected. But the venture was poorly managed, and in the spring of 1880 the works were shut down.

In the vicinity of Sitka there are a number of very promising ledges, and a few mines are being worked here in a small way; but capital is greatly needed for the development of the district.

The Alaska Commercial Company owns a group of quartz mines at Silver Bow Basin, Sheep Creek and Bermers Bay, known as the Unga Island mines. The company has 90 stamps in operation at its different mills, and the mines have produced, up to the close of the year 1900, over $1,000,000. It is the intention. of the company to increase the capacity of its milling plants at an early date to such an extent that these mines will produce a million of dollars annually. The body of ore which the company is now working is over 100 feet wide, and it is said to be practically inexhaustible. The mills are run by water power, and are operated nine months in the year. The wages paid are as follows: Surface men, $3 per day; miners, $3.50, and mill men from $3 to $4 per day.

The physical conditions that surround the Unga Island mines are of the most favorable nature. Water transportation enables the company to land supplies on its own wharf at a less cost than at any other mining camp in Alaska, and the result is that the low grade ores, which occur in immense bodies on the island, can be mined and milled at a good margin of profit.

The Harris Mining District is about twenty years old. Two miners, Richard T. Harris and Joseph Juneau, in the summer of 1880, found gold on a small stream near the head of Silver Bow Basin, about three miles west of the place where the flourishing little town. of Juneau now stands. The news of the strike soon reached Sitka, and the whole town rushed to the scene. of the new discovery. A number of locations were

made, the stream was christened Gold Creek, a mining district was organized, a town marked out, and mining operations commenced in earnest. During the year 1881 the district produced about $150,000.

At Lituya Bay, west of Juneau, placer mining has been carried on for a number of years.

The famous Treadwell mine on Douglas Island, near the town of Juneau, produces nearly $1,000,000 annually. Quartz locations were first made on this island in May, 1891. Later Mr. John Treadwell, of

San Francisco, acquired the claims by purchase, the price paid, it is said, was $400.00. At the present time there are 240 stamps in operation at the mines, with a daily capacity of about 1,000 tons. The ore has an assay value of $4.19 per ton, and is mined at a total cost of about $1.00 per ton, leaving a net profit of over $3.00 per ton of ore crushed. A large number of men. are employed at average wages of $2.50 per day and board.

Cook's Inlet.* Since 1896, when the first considerable influx of miners reached the Cook Inlet region *W. C. Mendenhall Government Report.

in response to the strike made on Six-mile Creek during the previous year, it has been fairly well known as a mining center, and has attracted a modest share of the Alaskan immigration each season.

Previous to 1896 gold had been mined for two or three years on Bear Creek, a tributary of Resurrection Creek, and colors were found in all the streams thereabout, but the district was not well known and had been prospected but little.

Since 1896 more systematic work has been done by the few among the usual throng of prospectors who have any idea of such work, and most of the streams which enter Turnagain Arm have been examined more or less thoroughly to their sources. As a result the productive parts of the district have been extended from Bear Creek to include other tributaries of Resurrection Creek, most of Six Mile and its branches, and, on the north side of the arm, Bird Creek and Glacier Creek.

Work has as yet not been generally carried across the divide north of Turnagain Arm, although one or two claims were staked on Knik drainage in 1898, because the region in this direction is difficult of access and prospectors are usually without pack animals.

Within the peninsula, south of Turnagain Arm, some prospecting has been done along Kenai lake and river, and during 1898 one or two expensive attempts were made to develop hydraulic properties here..

Hope City, at the mouth of Resurrection Creek, was at first the leading camp of the district, but with the more rapid development of the Sixmile diggings Sunrise City, at the mouth of this stream, became the larger town and is now the center of distribution for the region.

So far only placer work has been done, and this has

been confined to the short summer season of about three months, when the year's wages must be made, so that here, as in other parts of Alaska, the operator must work in very much richer ground than would be necessary in the States in order to make mining pay.

Some quartz properties have been staked in the district, but have not been developed. Near the mouth of Sawmill Creek, which flows into the south side of the Arm, a few miles above Sunrise, a ledge of doubtful extent is reported. On Bird Creek, a property for whose richness most extravagant claims were made, was located by one of the local prospectors. A sample, given to the writer, proved to be a fragment of one of the aplite dikes so numerous in the Sunrise series. It assayed about $7.50 per ton, mostly in gold.

On the whole, it may be said that few of the claims about Turnagain Arm are profitable. The shortness of the season for work here, as in other parts of Alaska, is an element in bringing about this result. Less than $5 per day to the man during the working season of about three months will scarcely pay the prospectors' expenses during the long idle period. The Mills Creek property has paid in its richest parts as high as $120 per day to the man for short periods, but this is a maximum very rarely reached. This series of five claims included in this property yield a revenue of about $25,000 a year and are regarded as the best properties within the district. Many placers which are worked pay less than $3 per day and are disposed of by the owners as quickly as possible. The only mining so far done is placer work. The outlook for paying quartz is not good, but conditions seem favorable for profitable hydraulic work in a few localities.

The Mines Along the Yukon River, in American territory, which continue to attract the attention of the