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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 31, 1916)
THE STJXDAY OREGOXTAX. PORTLAND, DECE3FBER 31, 1916. North Americas Golden Horn Seward peninsula and its hundreds OF MILLIONS OF GOLD-BEARING GRAVELS. -b i i . ssa3aaBBaaaBBBEnaEBBBBaBBaaBBBBBBBa3BBaBL. t'jiMBHBaai i r i n 'Jbbbbbbbb- (Copyright, 1916. by Frank G. Car penter.) w NOME. Alaska. I hrve Just re turned from a trip with Jafet Lindeberg through the greatest gold mines of the Seward Peninsula. These mines belong to the Pioneer Mining Company, which was founded by Lindeberg, Brynteson and Lind bloora, the three lucky Swedes, who made the first discovery at Anvil Creek, near Nome. Since then more than $6,000,000 worth of gold has been taken out of. that creek, and tens of millions have come from the coastal plain through which it runs. The Pi oneer Mining Company was founded Shortly after the discovery. . and it has been mining gold almost continuously since then. It now owns about 3000 acres of gold-bearing earth and is cap italized at $5,000,0(70. When gold was discovered Lindeberg and his partners washed out the first dust by hand, nelting the frozen earth with hot water. Today the washing is done with the finest of mining machinery. Rivers of water have been carried over the mountains to supply the hydraulic giants, and the gold-bearing earth is forced up through pipes to a height of 50 feet into sluice boxes, which take out the gold. Some of the land is phenomenally rich. Three hundred acres, or about one-tenth of it, will run, so Mr. Lindeberg tells me. from $76,000 to $100,000 of gold to the acre, or In all from $20,000,000 to $30,000,000. The remaining 2700 acres carry more or less gold and the company has enough work in sight to keep it busy lor generations to come. But before 1 describe my trip through the mines, let me tell you something Rbout the great gold regions of the Seward Peninsula. In which they are located. This peninsula is the Golden Horn of the North American continent. It forms the extreme western end of Alaska. It is 2700 miles from Seattle nd only 60 miles from Asia across Bering Strait. It consists of a body of land 20 miles long and in places 150 miles wide. It Is twice as big as Maryland and half the size of Ohio, nd a great part of It la peppered with gold. The district has already pro duced more than $70,000,000 worth of gold dust and nuggets and the country lias hardly been scratched. Dr. Alfred H. Brooks, the head of the Alaska di vision of the geological survey, has es timated that there are more than $300. 000,000 worth of gold mixed with its gr.-wcls. and the probability Is that the total output of minerals will be equal to 00 times the amount we paid for Alaska. The first rich gold finds were made not far from this city of Nome, and for some years men were washing gold from the sands of the seashore, not a stone's throw from where I am writ ing. Tou can't make good wages by doing that now. and the country in the rear, running from here back t the mountains is covered with mines, where they are now taking out gold. There Is one large company which has an output of a million a year, and there are others that are paying large dividends. All along the Southern frrraat of the peninsula, from here to ;olofnin Bay, they are mining gold, and rich gold creeks are to be found on the Northern slopes not far from the Arctic Ocean. In addition to the gold, thy have discovered valuable de posits or" tin, and they are mining also antimony, galena and graphite. The Seward Peninsula la a part of Arctic Alaska. It lies right under the Arctic circle, and on the north is washed by the Arctic Ocean. The coun try is underlaid with prehistoric ice, and the most of the gold has to be thawed out of gravel that has been locked in ice for thousands of years. The peninsula is ice-bound except from June to November. It has more than six months of Winter, during which the ocean is frozen far out from land and the smaller streams freeze to the bottom. The thermometer goes down at times to 50 and even more degrees below zero. The country is covered with snow and the only means of travel is by foot or with sleds drawn by dogs. The mails come weekly by dog-sled from Fairbanks, a distance greater than from New York to Chicago. Navigation Is open only during the Summer, when two lines of steamers have monthly sailings between Nome and Seattle, and when there is regu- ffodern Poultry Culture The study of organs of diges tion, breathing and reproduc tion and their functions has re ceived considerable attention by scientists, which has formed a basis for the study and treatment of disease. In this article there will be given some of the ways to discriminate between healthy and diseased organs, also a de scription of the passage of the feed. z BY DR. B. F. KNAPP, Poultry Investigator and Pathologist for United States Department of Agriculture. AN AUTOPSY should be performed as soon after death as possible, as in hot weather it very quickly starts to decay, yvhich Impairs the progress of the work. Lay the bird on a table with Its head from you; pluck the feathers from the tinder side of the body, and with a sharp knife cut through the abdominal wall to the side of the breastbone. Carry this cut forward till you strike the bone, then make the same kind of a cut on the other side; then grasp the breast bone with the hand and force it forward, breaking out most of it. The organs are now exposed for observation. First, note the conical-shaped heart, cone up. in the chest portion, and above this the lungs, which in a healthy state are a pale pink. If they are congested or inflamed they will appear dark and more or less solid or marbled when cut open. Back of this point, in the mid dle of the cavities, you will see a large tlark solid brown organ, which is the liver. Of all organs, the liver is most often diseased in the fowl. We have found that the fowl, unlike mammals. does not suffer from abscess of the liver, though many tlnjes it is in a state of inflammation, which gives it a grayish mottled appearance. Again, it may be highly congested and en larged, when it will appear dark red to clay colored. Fatty livers are com mon, especially in overfed fowls. They lar communication with interior Alas ka by way of the Yukon. There are but few wagon roads on the peninsula, and the country has only two little railroads. One of these is on the south coast, running from Nome back to the mountains. The other is not far from the Arctic Ocean, . connecting the town of Candle with the gold-bearing creeks. Both lines are of a narrow gauge. At this writ ing neither is working. The Summers of the Seward Penin sula are delightfuj. As I write this the air Is full of ozone and the thermome ter is about 80 degrees above zero. The country is covered with green. There are wild flowers everywhere, and the lowlands have a thick mat of vege tation composed of mosses, grass and flowers. There are many bushes of blueberries and ealmonberries are to be had for the picking. The greater part of the country is rolling, and there are rounded hills that rise to a height of from 800 to 2500 feet above the sea So far, the most f the gold has been found in the beds of the creeks and in the coastal plains, consisting of old sea beaches. This gold Is all free gold, but it Is believed that quartz gold will yet be found in the mountains. Until 1898. when the gold fields of Nome were discovered, the Seward Pe ninsula was one of the least known parts of the world. It was looked upon as a barren waste, and its only popula tion three or four hundred Eskimos and a score or more of whites who came here to engage in whaling. This was so notwithstanding the country was one of the first to be discovered by the Russians. It is now two centuries since they learned it existed, and two years after our Declaration of Inde pendence was signed. Captain James Cook traveled along the coast and sur veyed it. The Russians established a fur-trading post at St. Michael In 1835. just two years after Chicago became an incorporated town. They built a blockhouse there and continued their settlement until Alaska was sold to the United States. After we got possession of the ter ritory we learned that there was some, gold in the peninsula: but it was not until the stampede to the Klondike oc curred that much attention was paid to its possibilities. After that prospec tors began working along the south coast. They found some gold near Go lofnin Bay, and then drifted north and prospected along the Snake River, which flows into the ocean at Nome. Here good indications were found, and here, in 1898, the three lucky Swedes. appear light brown in color and when cut the knife blade seems greasy. In black head in turkeys the liver has de rayed spots which appear yellowish white. In fowl cholera the liver is large and very dark red. Now remove the liver and heart and note below, extending from the crop, the second portion of the esophagus. This long tube terminates Just before the gizzard, in a slight expansion, the stomach. The gizzard is the large or gan, about 24 inches in diameter and one inch thick, located a trifle to the left and rests diagonally in the abdom inal cavity. It is in this organ the feed is. ground. There is seldom any diseased condition of the last three named' organs. Extending from the upper and anterior part of the gizzard we note the beginning of the small intestines in the form of a loop. This loop Is about four inches long and passes to the outside of the mass ot intestines. The Interesting part noted here is the long whitish-yellow lobu lated strip lodged between these two portions of the first part of the small Intestines. This is the pancreas, one of the most vital organs of digestion. It secretes a fluid that contains fer ments which digest various nutrients. From this point the balance of the Chicken, duck, goose and tur key feathers are salable If prop erly saved and sorted. In the course of a year they represent an appreciable sum, which Is fre quently thrown away. All that is needed to take advantage of this valuable by-product is a few pointers on sorting and marketing, which will be dis cussed in next week's article. intestines are supported by a delicate web-like structure. We note in this delicate web many blood vessels and nerves which have been traced from the large trunks under the backbone to the intestinal wall. At a point four inches from the anus two blind pouches are given off. in which there is often found a small white worm. If these intestinal worms are found, the birds should be given one grain thymol each, and Epsom Jafet. Lindeberg, Krik Lindbloom -and John Brynteson, made the discovery on Anvil Creek which showed that Nome wn to be one of the richest placer gold camps of the world. The news of the discovery of the three lucky Swedes caused the great Anvil Creek which showed that Nome 'I : flMMBaaaaaaaHP T -f M ' H wan to be one of the richest placer gold li jggjjjy- ' li-iillHL stampede to this part of the world. In the Fall of 189S Nome, then called Anvil City, had a population of 250. By the end of the next year it had 3000; and the first and second sailings of 1900 alone brought in 20.000 more. A row of tents and shacks five miles long was built along the seashore. The country about wis honeycombed with pits. During -one year 4500 mining claims were recorded, and from 50 of these claims was taken out more than a million and a half dollars' worth of gold. Then the first gold was found in the sands of the seashore. It was discov ered by a lTnited States soldier, who was accustomed to pan out enough every day or so for an extra meal. Then "Missouri Bill" made his big strike-, washing out $12,000 worth of gold in one day: and a little later 2000 men were engaged in beach mining. They averaged from $20 to $100 a day each, and within less than two months they had taken out more than a million dol lars by means of hand rockers from the sand in front of Nome. This gold was found in a kind of ruby sand which lay on the shore in beds of from six inches to two feet in thickness. Some of the sand was rich in gold, and the boach mining created great excitement. All sorts of theories were advanced as to gold in the ocean, and every one expected to make a for tune. Many got as much as from $5 to $10 a pan: and not a few took out thirty or forty thousand dollars each from their little seashore claims. To day any one can wash three or four dollars a day out of the Nome sands, and there are some miners st'll at work there. When the beach mining was at its height, the people went crazy. Mining cradles were in great demand and the price of lumber rose to $400 a thousand feet. Coal brought from $50 to $100 a ton, and cabins and shacks of one room sold for $600 each. Wages at once jumped to $10 a day. and during a part of the time to $2 an hour. Then the sands began to play out. In 1900 those in front of Nome yielded $350,000, but the next year they had dropped to $50. 000. and now their output can be count ed by hundreds. It is the same with the other beach mines along the coast. Some of them yielded hundreds of salts at a dosage one tablespoonful to the dozen fowls. Dissolve the salts in water and use the water to moisten bran or mash and thus feed. Some think a fowl has no kidneys. which is the wrong idea. The kidneys are two in number and are lodged in irregular cavities in the under surface of the backbone. They are made up of three lobes or knots and the entire mass is about one and one-half to two inches long. At the anterior point in the male bird we notice a white oval body lodged against the backbone, which is the reproductive organ. In the female at this point we find the ovary, and extending from the ovary on the left side a long tube about 18 or 20 inches long, called the oviduct. The yolk of the egg Is formed in the ovary, and as it is fully developed it Is discharged into the anterior portion of the oviduct. Passing down this duct there is formed around it. first, the al bumen, next the membranes, and finally the shell. Connir of the Kecd. The feed passes through the first portion of the esophagus or gullet to the crop, which is in reality a store house. The crop Is located anterior and a trifle to the right of the center of the chest. From, the crop the feed passes through the second portion of the espphagus to the stomach, which is sometimes called the proventriculus. Here the feed is soaked in a fluid that is strongly acid and contains a ferment that changes the protein or muscle building material into soluble forms. The food then passes to the gizzard. where it Is ground. The gizard is provided with strong muscular walls and a hard inner pad. These muscles contracting against grit or pieces of stone' grind the feed into small particles. From the gizzard the ground feed passes into the intestines, where it is further acted upon by substances from the pancreas, aided by the bile from the liver. There is also some fluid se creted by glands from the walls of the intestines. What Become of the Feed. That part of the feed that cannot be digested and rendered into the proper kind of solution is voided. It is further found that the secretions from the kidneys, which are thrown off thousands of dollars, but they were soon washed out. In the meantime the output of the mines discovered along the creeks flow ing into Snake River and on the plain back of Nome steadily increased, and It is this region that is being mined today. If you will imagine a grassy plain running back from the seashore for a distance of five or six miles to a low range of mountains you will have some idea of the present gold mining district of Nome. The plain consists of three old sea beaches, each of which contains gold. The first begins at the shore and runs for a mile or so back. It consists of tundra, which means that It is hidden by moss, grass, niggerheads and other vegetation, and that the land below is of ice-frozen gravel. The sec ond beach, which is a little higher and farther back. Is also tundra: but it con sists of material deposited at a different period, as does also the third beach, which runs into the foothills of the mountains. For ail practical purposes the beaches are one. Just now they are covered with green, except where the gold mines have caused the excavation of the ground beneath. They looked much like meadows when the gold miners first came. Beyond these beaches and in the mountains, and especially in the creeks that flow from them, great quantities of gold have been found. The whole region, in fact, seems to have been more or less peppered with grains of gold, flakes of gold, flour gold and small nuggets. As It is now. the coun from the body, are carried through two small tubes and voided. The whitish portion of the outer surface of the droppings is the kidney secretion. That part of the nutrients which has been converted Into the proper solution Is taken up by minute vessels lining the Inner wall of the intestine and car ried to all the tissues: to nourish the body, to repair It. to continue growth. THE most popular of all American breeds of poultry is the Plymouth Rock. This breed as first origin ated was of the barred variety, which Is yet the most popular of all the col ors. Early In the breeding of Barred Plymouth Rocks fanciers reported the appearance of white chicks. They were "sports," and some were bred together, producing the present variety of White Plymouth Rocks. They have attained great popularity, widely bred both for utility and fancy, and have proven satisfactory, in either capacity. They are hardy and especially adapt ed to farms. The hens lay large dark brown eggs of a grade much sought in certain localities. The chicks are vigorous, strong and ' t ' ' II I T I : I' I . V l" U T 1 1 It M K S ' try is covered with piles of gravel, the tailings from which the gold has been washed, and there are also great gravel beds that mark the workings of the larger properties, such as those of the Pioneer Mining Company. The Pioneer properties are in and about Anvil Creek, and they include the sito of fhe original discovery. There are hundreds of men working there, but they are scattered about so that they do not seem to be many. The most of the work Is now done by machinery, and a single man and a machine will accomplish what it took hundreds of men to do In the past. The chief agent in getting out the gold is water, which bursts forth from pipes in streams as big around as a telegraph pole and often several hun dred feet long. The force of these streams is such that they would cut a man in two if he tried to cross one. They are so strong you cannot pierce them with an ax. They are sent against the hills, and they lift up rocks and gravel and shoot them in clouds through the air. At one point of my trip today one of these streams came between me and the sun. and the sand, gravel and water composing It. took on all the colors of the rainbow. I stood fox awhile and watched the men working. They were clad In slickers and white rubber boots that reached to their waists. One man di rected the pipe from which the stream came. This was so hung on a pivot that it could be moved with the touch to form aggs and to keepu the fowl warm. About 50 years ago a Frenchman made a study of the breathing appara tus of the domestic fowl and in many respects he found it to be more nearly reptilian than mammalian. That is. in the fowl's development it may have come from the reptilian line and not the mammalian. To llustrate one point. active, and grow exceptionally fast on range, reaching maturity at from 5 to 6V4 months old. They are readily salable for the highest grade of market poultry at all ages from broiler size to full maturity, and are very popular in some sections for the production of capons. Males weigh from to 11 pounds, females 7 to 10 pounds, and are prob ably the largest of all the Plymouth Rock family. Their plumage should be pure white, legs and beak deep rich yellow, combs small, single and fine Such a fowl not only dresses to the best advantage, and commands best prices, but is also very, attractive in large flocks. I of a finger, and made to carry the gold bearing earth where the men willed. The water boiled and foamed as It struck the glacial ice in which the golden gravel Is bedded. It melted the Ice and tore the earth away from It and carried the mass of earth and gravel to the hydraulic lifts. In one place I saw such streams, moving mountains of gravel, and everywhere they were forcing the gold, sand and gravel up the pipes into the sluice boxes.' The most of the mining here is done with hydraulic lifts. The sluice boxes are great troughs about as wide as a wagonh'ad and perhaps 150 feet long. Their sides are two feet in height, and in the bottom are steel gratings, known as riffles, which catch the gold as the stream of gravel and water runs over them. These flu ice boxes arc made of steel. They are inclined at an angle of about 30 degrees, and are supported on a trestle work, the top being at an altitude of 50 feet or more above the ground. At the upper end of the sluice box there is a steel pipe as big arpund as the chest of a prize fighter, which extends from there to the ground. This is connected with the hydraulic stream, and the water sent from the pipes 1 have described forces the gold-bearing earth, gravel and rock up through this pipe into the sluice box. The gold la so heavy that it drops to the bottom of the box within the first 30 or 40 feet, and is caught in the bird takes in air through its mouth or nasal passage, this passes through its windpipe, the windpipe divides at the upper and anterior part of the lungs into two tubes. At this point there is a flattened part which is the true organ of sound, so that the bird does not make Its sound at the upper part of the neck, but in the anterior part of the chest. Again, the lungs are small and located at the upper part of the chest. Through each lung there are three tubes and a large number of smaller ones given off at right an gles like the tubes of a pipe organ. This Is not all. for some of these tubes communicate with bladder-like sacs. Thus we find two in the abdominal cavity and three in the chest cavity. Those In the abdominal cavity lie by the side of the mass of intestines. The three in the anterior cheat cavity send prolongations Into these delicately walled sacs which extend into the bones. Even the bones of the skull have air spaces. The fowl is indeed a wonderful mechanism, and differs radi cally from cattle, horses or dogs. GIANT FOREST DEAL FIXED Government to Aequlre Trad With World's Largest Trees. WASHINGTON. Dec. 20. Giant for est, the privately-owned tract of the world's largest trees, in the heart of Sequoia. National park. Is about to pass Into the hands of the Government through co-operation between the in terior department and the National Geographic Society. tongress during the last session ap propriated $50,000 to purchase the land, but the owners refused to sell unless adjacent holdings, valued at $20,0u0, were taken at the same time. An option on the entire tract was secured, and recently the board of managers of the Geographic Society appropriated the $20,000 to make pos sible the immediate payment of $70. 000. DREAM REVEALS DROWNING Widow of Tragedy Victim I.c:iil Rivormeti to liody. DUNCANNON. Pa.. Dec. 22. A dream of his widow led to the finding of the body of Oustave Dill, of Duncannon, who was drowned in the Susquehanna River there several weeks ago. when his boat overturned. .Experienced rivermen had drugged the riffles, and the force of the stream la such that it carries away the refuse, stones and other material. During my visit to the mines I walked with Mr. Lindeberg up the 1 steps that led to these sluices, and I looker down upon the foaming, muddy I rivers which were thus carrying these I fortunes in gold. The streams arc at work day and night, and the gold drops I down into the riffles at the rate of I $3000 per day. or about $100,000 per month, throughout the open season, when the weather is .-o warm that the j water can tlow. ; I stood at the foot of the pipe and . saw the terrible force with which the ! gold-bearing flood was borne onward. IThis is so enormous that if one should jfall into it he would be crushed to a I Jelly, and if caught near the bottom I of the pipe would be drawn into it by (the suction. Such an accident hap I pened not long ago. A miner fell and 'was sucked into the hole. Every bit of blood was taken out of his body and his arms and legs were torn off. At on.- of the sluice boxes we visited the water had been turned off for the moment to repair some part of the machinery, and Mr. I.indeberg and 1 walked up through the bottom of the box and examined the gravel and gold left In the riffles. At the ,-xtrenie top of the box the first gold was caught bv square blocks of wood set into the sluice way. Just below this I could see specks and bits of free gold, while a little farther down the riffles had been imbedded In quicksilver. This quick silver was already loaded with gold. It had lost its volatile quality, and mrmm Ilk,, a heavv sand or hard putty. I took up some of it and squeezed it in mv hand. 1 could not see any gold. It looked more like an aluminum dough than anything else. Later on. in the office of the com pany. 1 was shown an iron chest of about the size of a Saratoga trunk which contained a dozen basins filled with this amalgam of quicksilver and gold. It contained several hundred thousand dollars' worth of the precious metal, and still he sides of the chest were so thin that It seemed as thoug.. It might easily be broken with a sledge, and a blast of dynamite would certainly have knocked the lock into pieces. After looking at the sluice boxes Mr. Lindeberg took us to the sides of a hill and demonstrated the richness of the gold-bearing sand of that MTt of the mine. He drove a shovel into the hill and carried a couple of quarts or the sand and gravel to one of the little streams that ran through the bed of the pit. He dipped the shovel into the water and moved it slowly about, washing away the dirt and the sand. Finally, all the rock and sand were thrown out and at the end he showed us a good-sized pinch of pure gold in grains ranging from the size of coarse ly ground coffee to those of fine table salt. My daughter, who wa-s with me. expressed a wish to do likewise, and Mr. I.indeberg gave her the shovel. She scooped up about a hatful of earth and washed It. At the end. she had perhaps threescore of fine grains of gold In the shovel, the value of which was about 75 cents. the stream, missing, so they believed, no current or eddy in which the body might liavr been lodged. Efforts were discontinued ten days ago. Several nights ago. in a dream, Mrs. Dill saw every circumstance of the finding of the body and later the funeral of the drowned man. She was unable at first to prevail upon any person to search for the body. Finally two old rivermen. In credulous, but full of pity, agreed to take up the search again. Within five minutes after the men had thrown in their grappling irons the body was hooked and brought to the surface af tli.- i.l.i. iiidi.-atcd by Mrs, l'lll. When Dandruff Goes The Hair Grows It' s easy to pet rid of dandruff. Gently rub spots of dandruff, scales, itching and irritation with Cuticura Ointment. Next morning shampoo with Cuticura Soap and hot water. This treatment every two weeks is usually sufficient to keep the scalp clean and healthy. Sample Each Free by Mail with J2-p book on the pktn. Adilrw pom-oafHt "Cuticura, Dept. 12K, Boston." 8o!d everrwher.