Strang* theory advanced by Peter L. Trout
in the last of a aeries of artide^.iu the
Nome Nugget, titled “My First Experience
in Alaska."
' \
1
v
We hever mined on Sundaj’s.^nd
these days.! usually spent in wandering
over the Fairweather glacier or in pros*
pec ti*ig the creeks between the tew and
the foothills, and on one occasion I
spent two or three days in suCfcessidtfln
prospecting the creeks. This was while
t^ie others were employed in,: exhaling
out the bed of the. creCk from which we
got our .abater supply. In these
v.
pros
pecting trips I never found even the
smallest-kind of k color. In' fact, I never
prospected ifia country so utterly 'barren
of placer gold as this seemed to be. Why
the beach should be rich and no gqld at
all in the country behind' It Was a prob
lem that I liad not yet solved, but on
one Of my Sunday prospecting trips the
mystery was all revealed to me in a mo
ment. This was when I washed up some
of the black dirt that Johnny Pix told
me contained gold of w-hich there was a
plentiful supply on a part of tlie glacier
that had been cut off from the rest of
the ice mass by a range of hills, and evi
dently had "not moved for centuries.
After considerable difficulty I managed
to gather up about a pint of .it, .which I
washed up in a pan, lind found that it
contained some ruby sand and some of
the ordinary black sand, and some fif
teen or tw&fly colors of gold exactly
similar to what we were washing up on
the beach. The true situation flashed on
my mind in a motnent. Three or four
miles back from the sea was a range of
foothills from 1,500 to 2,000 feet high.
This range might be called a bench or a
terrace, as there was no valley behind
it, but a nearly level country for five or
six miles, and along the foot of the main
range, on the base of Mount Fairweather,
wu a glacier seven or eight miles in
width. It was now certain that at one
time this glacier extended over the foot
hills and fronted on the '•ea, where it
was melted away W the warm waters of
the Japan current. There was, there
fore, not'very long ago, an unbroken in
clined plane of ice extending from the
sea nearly to the top of Mount Fair
weather, a distance of about forty miles,
and it was in a remnant of this glacier
that 1 had washed up ruby and black
sands and gold." This was in meteoric
dust, as I had long known that dead
glaciers were liable to be covered with !
it, and I had been reading Nonlenks- j
jold’s journal of his explorations in the j
interior of Greenland, in which he Mid
that the ice which cover* nearly the;
whole of the interior, in covered with j
several inches of meteoric dust. This j
dust is the result of meteors coming
Uirou^Mtht* air with such frightful ve
locity that the friction of the air hums
them up, and when they reach the earth
there is nothing left of them hut hlack
dust, such as 1 washed up on the Fair
weather glacier. These meteors, Prof.
Proctor says, come (rout the sun, ami of
course can only fall in the •laytime, and
they are so numerous that human life
would be in constant danger, during the
daytime, only for the prolretion that the
atnoaphrre affords. Ilia views seem to
he endorsed by other astronomers, and
thejyljta(ri'"fiarirty tie-' arty doubt but1 that
they are. substantially oorrect’*^^|Jow,
'trhiie'this glacier lasted, or tjjiii'jjftclined
plane of ice, which extendadi.jfroai near
the BUinniitofMount Fair weather to' the
<eft,6a' distance of about, forty nttles, gif
tjhe meteoric dust -that rtlF wi il roust
Have fdtind'its Way to'the sea.beach,'
Where the glacier jnelted'away,'»nd tW
f^othi6«t;'th«ftiselves furnished the .ex
planation why the beach Consisted al
mpst entirely tif sand, as'the glacier, in
o^Aer to cover,the foothiljjp, must have
reached so far irp the sidetof the moun
tain that but few fragments of rocks
could fall ou't-of "il»e sides^tf ihe jnoun
taife on thence. That the Whole country
ha£been covered by ice in the inahner'
indicated is made positively Certain by
the'j#in*rtWtH of'the glacier being.found
.beldw-ih^fedthills, and it is also certain
that hot more than fortYvor fifty yearrf
have Apasse^l sin^ ti»er
(Wish melkp away, its I
^ “ the beddh are of
r- fiear the
of' the tree*
greater age.tban1
that, and, the woods are filled with ifcr
ca^ywl, ’trhAk*'1 \of tree's' several fcei’in
diameter Hiat <h^d,fbeen growing on the
ice.*1’'-' 1 l*' "
This also explained why I could not
find a single color . ini any of thd'creekl}
between the sea and the foothills, as all
the gold that came down from the skies
with the meteoric dust felt on dtae ice
which, covered the country, and was'atl
deposited on the beach where f’he'gTacier
melted away. '
,..,lipw long thttf glacier existed in the
shape that. I have here outlined, of
course no one tin tell, but it peems to be
extreinelyprobable that it.Jggted during
the whole of the glacial period, whi^hjs.
generally believed, bythose ,whd are
supposed 'toj.be; cdiupeteniv ti; pass on
such a subject,' to be not less than 200,
ooa.vwjp ijaut xfjbetffcfe more or less, it
see true fee tlrttih to'1 tne that enough gold
fell from the skies on an ice surface
forty miles in length by several miles in
width, to make paying diggings on an
ocean beach. That it) the . conclusion
that I came to as,a result of my own ob
servation'. 1 am well aware that it is
said, meteors do Tint Contain any gold.
This would be to me a convincing argu
ment if I had not washed tip gold on the
Fair weather glacier out of meteoric dust,
artd I know very well that Johtuiy I)ix.
did the-same. , ....
Unfortunately, the. widest of k,now
hut little about'how gold came to be
where it is usually found, but we will
examine into.ft and see if What little we
do know about gold will' justify such a
conclusion and make it' impossible for
gold to liave come in the way indicated.
One thing is certain, if the gold that
we washed up on the beach came from
the skies along with meteoric.dost, it
must lutve fallen everywhere else jn
about tlie same proportion whether on
sea or land. Now,one of the few tilings
that we know about gold is that sea
water contains nearly a grain to the ton,
or a little more than half a grain to the
cubic »pd, This would niwn that every
cubic uiile of sea water contains over
|10U,UUt),UM) wortli of gold. The sea is
about 100,000,000 years old, and if this
fine gold has been coming down into it
ever since it was a sea, then the pres
ence of such an enormous amount of
gold lieing in the sea water is satisfacto
rily accounted for. It is not in fine
particles, such as I washed upon the
glacier, but is in a slate of solution, ami
it is certain that it could hr in the sea
in no other way, as the sea water con
tains bromine, chlorine and saline,
winch are all solvents, and it is likely
that it one of thuee fine partirlre of gold
fell into the sea where it wna several
miles ileep it would never reach the
.^Freighting an3. Packing to and from all .Creeks.
‘@oad Equipments and Service Unexcelled
bottom, as it would be-acted upon. bf>
these solvents and cOmbi with-them,’
and.thus become ft constituent part of
thesea water.
Another fact that is- generally kypown
ifi regapl to gold is that it is found in
nj^rly jf.net all-‘kinds'6F sedimentary
andmetatnorphie rocks, but not in. piljy^.
irtg quantities. , tf gold has been ^piping
'ddwn frpm the skies ever sitftie the world
wa§ a world, *.and was coniing down
while .these sedimentary ,rocks were
forming,-BS'it had comedown on .the.
glacier that I have described, then we
also have a satisfactory''explanation of
.Why-all these' kinds of rock*! have at
least a trace of gold in them.-r. , „
Again, if all the gold in the world
came in this way, there would be no pay
found anywhere in either rock or placer,
unless some kind of concentrating pro
cess had Been at work, and if there is
p.ny e*»jj>ption to that rule I have never
seen or known anything about it. In
fact, I feel quite sure that there is.no
exception to it.
1 have also found by actual, experi
ment that this fine gold, such as I washed
up on the Mount Fairweather glacier, is
much more evenly distributed oyer the
State of Washington than it is in Alaska,
as It is found in every place where there
are. large deposits of gravel and sand,
unless there is the very same reason.for
it not being there as there was for the
gold not being in the creeks back from
the creeks where 1 was working.
Before I came tq. Alaska there was a
controversy in the courts in regard to a
school section in Tacoma that was lo
cated and held for placer ground. I did
some panning there and found several
.pannings exactly similar to those which
I afterwards found on the glacier, and
.said then that I believed a sinplaf pros
pect.could be found in any scliotjl section
in the state, if there was as much sand
and gravel and as deep a gulch as there
was in the section in Tacoma. My ex
perience has taught me that the pres
ence of this ruby-sand gold in every pan
is excellent evidence that there is no
pay to be found anywhere in the neigh
borhood, and its absence is also proof
that some kind of concentrating process
has been going on, and therefore tliere
must be pay somewhere.
Another fact that would seem to bear
out this view of the case is that gold
mines as a rule do not extend to a great
depth below the surface, which is not
true of mines of silver, lead, copper amt
other metals. If the theory that I have
outlined be correct, this is just what
should be the situation.
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A. ». NOTICE.
Regular Inwtinn oi the Arctic Rrother
hood.Lodrd vtfe 'held ■« their hall on the
aecotxlairf fourth Prldaya of each month at
SoVlookp. m. . / • *
■iiiiw RAHMfrTORF C A
.. .. airitk Recorder, ,
ff$ written
on tbe
-- - nuufin
M-* of the Yukon Tailor
NewMiid mailed home would
- gratify relatives and friends
■led, only 2 cents.
Post ace,
“7T TO BE REOPENED.
Seventy-teo Roadhouae. which waa |[««n
up la at week by Mra. Hurna and Sweetie, will
not Tamainckaad Iona. It will be reopened
i about June I .by Mr.aaal Mra. H. Chadwick,
{ of Little Minook.creek.
NR. DAVITS ARTICLE
The article by Leoaard M. Davie, repro
duced in thla paper laat week front the
Mlnlag Wurhf. will he of eapaeial lateraat td
I outalde readera W ho a lab to (ala aa iaalgbt
‘ into Condition, rx latent la thla part of the
territory.
To local readera certain Inarm racier la
Mr. Davla'a article will be apparent aueb.
for laatanee. aa the oadaejoa of Jallua Rabaw
torf'a aad the Huatoa More, two obi eatab
liabed bouaea. front the Itat of proatiaeat
bualaaaa coaaerna. Aa a whole, however, the
Rampart region la portrayed with wo rape
j aial laRdeHty to the trwlh. aad aadoahtadly
I the w rlteup w III beappeaata tad hr I hoar who
1 aaad the Taboo Tallay Mew, nut to *-■—*T