The ALASKA
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Vol I. No. 5
Douglas, Alaska, Tuesday, October 2, 1911
10c a Copy
THE FUTURE OF THIS
MINING DISTRICT
There is little question among mining men, but what
this region is destined to become, someday, pretty nearly,
if not quite, the greatest mining region in the world.
On Douglas Island, in the Sheep Creek valley, in the
Silver Bow Basin, at Auk Bay, and elsewhere on Admir
alty island, at Yankee Cove, Eagle river and Berners bay
and Comet, and on the mainland at Sumdum and Wind
ham, and'on the Taku river, are good prospects which will
some day be good mines. In all these mining camps there
will some dav be employed thousands of men and both
sides of Gastineau channel will receive a share of the re
sultant prosperity.
Nowhere in the world, scarcely, can ore be turned
into metal at so low a cost. No where in the world, hard
ly, can ore be found in such large bodies. When mines
are developed from the prospects now discovered but un
developed, thousands of men will be employed where now
there are but scores. And there is scarcely a mining man
who is conversant with the conditions as they now exist,
but who is satisfied that the country has been hardly
“scratched over.”
The lodes which are found in the Harris mining dis
trict are practically inexhaustable. The Treadwell, jor in
stance, which has been taking out millions a year for the
last quarter of a century, is working now in larger and
richer ore bodies than ever—the stopes show conclusively
that the present output will be not lessened in the next
decade, and there is every indication that the ore bodies
will continue to grow larger and richer, as the excava
tions in the Ready Bullion, the 700, the Mexican and the
Treadwell proceed.
Litigation has tied up some of the best mines in the
district for many years, but the end of this has been
reached, and the Harris mining district- is undoubtedly
(CONTINUED ON PAGE SEVEN) _____
BIG STRIKE ON
TAKU RIVER
After years of prospecting in the Taku, a big galena
strike has been made in that country.
Tom Ryan has returned with several sacks of the ore,
from which samples assayed carried values as high as
$78.68 a ton. It carries $31.86 worth of lead to the ton—
the first discovery of galena of any consequence in the
Harris mining district. The samples also were found to
contain $4 of gold and $34.82 of silver.
Interested in the property besides Tom Ryan are
George Cook and George Smith, all of Douglas.
“It is a poor man’s proposition,” said Tom Ryan last
week. “The claim, the ‘Taku Chief,’ is located only ten
miles back from tide water. The river is at least six feet
deep all the way back and small stemers can get up to us
without any difficulty. We have only one hole, and we
are down only six feet, but all the ore uncovered looks
like the samples we have brought in, and from the exami
nation we have made of the ledge, there is undoubtedly an
immense quantity of it.
“The mine is located a mile back from the river, with
sand flats intervening between the river bank and the
mine. We can take a team of horses and a wagon up there
tomorrow and haul the ore to the bank of the river over a
good road.
“We do not need any heavy machinery as the ore can
lie simply quarried out, thrown into a wagon, hauled to the
beach, loaded on the steamer.”
For several years prospectors have been working
along the Taku river, but practically everything has
been placer propositions, and have been a hundred or so
miles back. Tom Ryan himself prospected on the Inklin,
one of the tributaries of the Taku river.
The placer prospects on the Taku have never
yeyy promising, and in the last two years prospecting
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PROSPECTIVE VIEW OF ALASKA ETCECUTIVE MANSION, TO BE BUILT IN JUNEAU NEXT SUMMER.