THE NENANA DAILY NEWS
Application made April 1, 1918, at the postoffice at Nenana, Alaska,
for emry as second class mail matter, under the Act of March o, 1879.
“WHERE RAIL AND RIVER MEET”
Published every afternoon except Sunday, by the Nenana Printing
Company, at First and B Streets,, Nenana, Alaska.
R. G. Southworth .Editor and Manager
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cat:on of all news dispatches credited to it or not otherwise credited’in
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TRANSPORTING OUR TROOPS i
The world has been astonished at!
the great number of American sol- •
diers transported to Europe in the j
last half year. The number now
approximates 2,000,000, and the loss I
of life in transporting them has
been almost infinitesimal.
The success with which we have
moved our troops from the scattered j
camps in this country and across j
3,000 miles of ocean to the battle
front is great evidence of American j
efficiency. We have not only sur-i
prised our enemies; we have sur-,
prised our friends and ourselves.
The British controller of shipping, j
Sir Joseph Maclay, speaks of this'
movement across the sea as “A
transport miracle.” We have been j
inclined to attribute this achieve-!
ment solely to our navy and our
shipping, but the British controller
speaks in high praise of the share
the American railroads had in the
work. He says:
“If the American railroads had
not been operated with success the
whole transport movement might
have failed, because it was essential
to quick transportation that the
troops should be ready for the
ships.”
Director General McAdoo seems
justified in his statement that while
the development of the policy of
the railroad administration requires
time, progress has been made toward
the goal.
ONE FROM THE FRONT
An Irish soldier, long without
funds, in desperation finally wrote
to his patron St. Joseph: “In the
name of God, will you send me
ten dollars? N'o one else will.”
» The letter, in the usual course,
came to the captain for censorship.
The officer, astonished and i m :ed.
showed it to the people in the >fficc.
Among them was a Y. M. C >.
clerk who was impressed. “This
man,” he said, “has faith in his re
ligion. It should not be disc.,, ■-aged.
It’s too rare. Let’s take i >, a sub
scription and send him sone ney
in answer to his plea.”
The Y. M. C. A. man stav.jd the
f
subscription with a dollar. The few
present contributed a like amount.
The total was five dollars. The Y.
M. C. A. man attended to the trans
mission of the subscription. He used
one his own envelopes. *
The soldier, on receiving the re
ply to his letter, wrote again to St.
Joseph: “Thanks for your rem:t
tance, but the next time you send
money send it through the Kr.ights
of Columbus. These left-handed
Prostestants have held out five on
you.”
GERMAN VIEW OF CHISTIANITY
Frederich Wilhelm Nietzche was
one of the most noted of modern Ger
man philosophers. How much has
his philosophy affected the views
and character of the Germans of
today? Is not the answer written
in the blood of the women and
children, the old men of occupied
France and Belgium? Are not the
Lusitania victims witnesses to Ger
man adoption of Nietzche’s faith?
Here is his indictment of Chris
tianity:
“With this I conclude, and pro
nounce my sentence: I condemn
Christianity. To me it is the great
est of all imaginable corruptions.
The church is the great parasite;
with its anemic idea of holiness it
drains life of all its strength, its
love, and its hope. The other world
is the motive for the denial of
every reality. I call Chrisianity the
one great curse, the one great in
trinsic depravity, for which no ex
pedient is sufficiently poisonous,
secret, underhand, to gain its ends.
I cal! it the one immortal shame and
blemish upon the human race ”
NOORWIK, Alaska —A Red Cross
call for goosefeathers for use in
French hospitals has reached the
natives of the tundra-covered Xoor
wik section of Alaska, which lies
near the Point Barrow cou ttry, up
on the corner of the continent.
In response, the Xoorwik natives
are preparing to go after the wild
■ geese, both for their meat and their
feathers. The natives will trave!
! behind their reindeer on their trips
j to the huning grounds as those ani
1 mals do not frighten the birds.
*—1 1 1 1 ’’-I
Watch It DroP
$1 a day!
NEW PRICE TODAY
Lot No. 1 - $572.52
Lot No. 2 = $245.52
These Lots are centrally located, being
only a few steps from the Postoffice and
office of U. S. Commissioner and across
the street from the Telegraph office and
Federal Reserve.
The Lots origionally sold for $1200.00
and $500.00 respectively. For further in
formation see Dr. J. R. Bowen, the dentist
Bowen Building, Nenana.
HOT SPRINGS MINES
YIELD GOLD AND TIN
Old dumps on Sullivan creek in (
the vicinity of Hot Springs are being
sluiced to recover “stream tin”, of
which large quantities are obtained,
yielding from 50 to 60 per cent of
the metal, valued at approximbately
86 cents a pound.
In the days when the gravel de
posits of Sullivan, Cache, Wood-'
chopper and other creeks of that j
locality were being worked for gold!
litle attention was paid to the yield I
of tin. The heavy gray pebbles and
boulders that filled the sluices and
interfered with the recovery of the
gold, were considered a nuisance
and were wastefully and contemptu-1
ously thrown aside. Between nine
and ten millions of dollars in gold
were taken from the sands and
profitable mining thereafter seemed
a remote possibility.
However, one man among the
many who sought riches there, was
far-sighted enough to see into the
future and to recognize in the hum
ble metal a surer and more certain
source of wealth than in the aristo
cratic yellow.
Sylvester Howell, who has, per
haps, wrested from the reluctant
j gravel more gold than all the other'
miners of that region, is a close
observer. He saw that the two
metals occurred in close association
all through the broad valley between
J Rough Top Mountain and Bean
Ridge. He observed that all through
the auriferous deposits the tin was
plentifully present. There w'as
never a nugget of gold to be found
where there was no tin, and no tin
to be found without an accom
| paniment of gold,
i In order to discover the bound
| aries of the area over which the bi
, metalic bonanza was scattered, he
j installed a Keystone drill and sank
; literally thousands of holes to bed
; rock, with the result that he has
found a paystreak one-half mils
i wide by sixteen miles long, contain
; ing both metals in such quantity
; as t£ justfy his belief that there
! is a sufficient quantity :o yield a
i never-failing supply, of tin at least,
j for centuries to come.
He has therefore prepared to
• operate on a large scale, an area
embracing several square miics. lie
; has secured the water i ights of
Baker, Boulder and Sullivan creeks
; and by diversion canals to. a'ing
i thirteen miles has brought these
■ waters to a head °.t an elevation
which commands the entire basin
; 16 miles long in which the deposit
occurs.
At the upper end of the valley
his canals terminate in an enormous
! flume out of which through taper
| ing length of steel hydraulic pipe
j he will lead the water to the “giants”
j by means of which the overburden
on the gravel will be washed away
and the rich deposits next to bed
rock sluiced to recover their treas
ures.
Preliminary to these hydraulic
, operations on a large scale, Mr.
; Howell has been employing the main
j body of water in washing up the
| old dumps and has this summer
j from this source alone shipped over
! fifty tons of stream tin, in addition
j to which sufficient gold has also
j been recovered from the tailings to
! bear a large proportion of the ex
I pense. The surplus of water has
been allowed to waste over a spill
way adjacent to the terminus of the
steel pipe and the rush of this
streamlet down the valley has suf
ficed to erode a miniature canyon
down the center of the valley, the
rugged walls of which disclose the
nature of the deposit from moss
to bedrock.
The depth of this miniature can
yon varies from ten feet at its
lower extremity to about fifty feet
at its higher. The deposit, except
for some three or four feet next to
bedrock, is composed of silt and ice.
Apparently an active glacier once
exerted its grinding forces upon the
rocky foundation of what is now
a broad valley. Some arresting
force stilled its action and a moraine
accumulation covered the icy mass.
Vegetation came and drifting sands,
alluvial silt of torrential streams, de
posited successive layers of soil on
which ice again formed with new
soil blankets and moss and vegeta
tion until the valley filled up and
flattened out and became a broad
pasture-land, lush with grasses,
moss, brush and trees. This pro
cess is clearly revealed by the gulley'
worn through the valley’s center,;
during the present summer, by Mr.!
Howell's waste water.
Alternate layers of muck and ice, •
of root-filled earth, and dirt-filled
ice indicate that fully one half of
the volume of the accumulation top-|
ping the bedrock is congealed water ,
and the remainder a solidified mass j
of powdery silt that melts like sugar
when water is applied and runs
away, if not in solution at least in
suspension and that the rush of
the waters will carry away to the
Tanana river fully 90 per cent of i
the volume of the overburden. The
fall from the hydraulic workings to .
the river is of so heavy
grade
that the silt will have no opportunity
to be precipitated until it has passed j
the boundary of possib’e interfer- j
ence with his mining operations. ^
Mr. Howell estimates that it will i
cost him less than 10 cents per ]
square foot of bedrock exposed to j
clean off this age-old glacial de-1
posit and to sluice out of the resi-'
due the twin metals that promise
so much for the future prosperity of
the region.
Experience has proved that ap-,
proximately two pounds net of tin
is recoverable from every square
foot of bedrock uncovered. Add to
this the value of the gold which in
this vicinity has been heretofore
as high as $10 per square foot and
even greater, and it may readily be
estimated that the prospects of
bonanza workings at Tofty (as the
camp is called) are very alluring
to say the least.
Assuming that only tin were
to be found and that Howell’s esti
mate of the expenses of recovery
are correct, what marvelous results
jnay be expected. From 1,000,000
square feet of bedrock, which is the
area of 1000 feet square, at two
pounds net of tin to the square
foot, the product would be 2,000,000
pounds of tin, whicu at 86 cents
per pound would amount to $1,720,
000, leaving the gold recovery en
tirely out of consideration And the
cost of recovery at 10 cents per
square foot would be $100,000 only.
But the experience of all the
miners who have worked in this
valley is that neither the gold rfor
the tin is ever found alone. In
variably both occur together, as
though ground out of the self-same
vein, and the theory that both metals
did originate in the same ledge or
chute is borne out by samples of
the tin ore in which particles of
gold are plainly discernible.
Prospecting for the source of the
tin has been vigorously prosecuted
by a number of persons, but a well
| defined theory has been advanced
that the veins or ledges from which
the metals came once lay as a
blanket above the present level of
the valley, and were ground out
therefore by action of the glacier or
disintegrated as the result of some
other undefined physical phenomena.
Certain it is, and this fact has
been proved conclusively by the
Keystone drill operations, that at
(certain well-defined limits on both
sides of the valley and at its upper
terminus the deposits cease both of
gold and tin. One hypothesis sug
gests that the continuation of the
ore bodies in which they originate
will be found when bedrock is clean
ed off by the hydraulic operations.
This hypothesis would present the
, possible continuation of the ore
bodies to indefinite depths, and to
promise tin mining operations there
on a large scale for many genra
tions to come.
These speculations, however, do
not trouble Mr. Howell. He is an
eminently practical miner. He has
gone about his work slowly, sys
tematically, surely. For several
years he has been buying up the
holdings of others until now he has
secured a sufficiently large area to
justify operations on a large scale.
He sought and found a sufficient
water supply at a sufficient height
o give him the requisite volume and j
'all. He has installed his thirteen i
niles of diversion canals, has built i
lis gigantic flume and attached to'
t his steel hydraulic pipe. His
‘giants’’ are ready to begin their
imitation of nature’s torrential
erosive effects upon hillside and
bottom land. And all this has been
accomplished only by an outlay of
money that would have discouraged
a man less certain of his results.
The steel pipe has been hauled
into the country by way of Chitina
and Fairbanks; the lumber for his
flumes has had to be hauled by
wagon over a precipitous mountain
road eleven and one-half miles,
from a point about six miles below
Hot Springs. All the food *ior his
employes, the feed for his horses,
has to be brought in over over the
same route and the ore that he
ships to the only tin smelter in
the U. S., “somewhere in New Jer
sey”, must be hauled to the slough
below Hot Springs by wagon, thence
by motor launch to Olsen’s landing,
where it is picked up by steamers
to be taken via St. Michaels to
Seattle and thence to the Atlantic
coast by rail.
It needs neither prophet nor seer
to predict the result of Sylvester
Howell’s operations, if his calcula
tions are as precise and accurate
as his past history justifies one to
expect them to be. All Alaskans
know him for a successful operator,
a man who has learned the mining
game by mining in the Alaskan
mines since his youth. He has
wrested wealth from her grudging
and difficult hills, but unlike many
others has chosen to devote t! at
wealth to Alaska’s |dcvclonment in
stead of taking it Outside for in
vestment in pleasure or profit-seek
ing enterprises. He has undertaken
to give to Alaskan mining operations
the importance of permanency
And if he succeeds, as it is sin
cerely to te hoped he may and will,
what reflex effect will it have upon
the Interior of Alaska’
Let anyone who seeks answer to
that question find it in the history
of Cornish and Welsh tin mines
One need not dream to see visions
of smelters arising where rail and
river bring the coal and tin to
gether, nor to see busy lines of
rails supplanting the corduroy
wagon trails to the mines. The uses
of tin, the growing demand for it,
the wasteful prodigality of its use
made necessary- by the very nature
of its uses, guarantees for it a grow
in;; and advancing market.
Our government has appealed to
everyone to "save tin”. Every
patriotic child now treasures the tin
foil in which his gum comes wrapped.
"Save the tinfoil” is a Rod Cross
slogan. But Sylvester Howell will
add to the world's tin supply this
year probably more tin than all the
tin foil gathered by the Red Cross.
Just let your mind consider for a
moment the uses to which tin is put
and then contemplate how difficult
is the recovery of waste tin. Most
ot the “tin" of commerce is merely
a base of sheet iron or steel very
thinly coated with tin, which once
applied is almost certainly lost t»
the world’s stock. Consider the
utensils and appliances made of tin
; and it will be self-evident to you
1 that the very utility of tin lies in
the waste of it once it enters the
' arts. Unlike gold, silver or even
I copper or iron, the recovery of
i waste is difficult and expensive,
i The millions of tin cans annually
j packed are consigned to the dump
j heap, useless and valueless in the
| main. There must be an ever-in
| creasing supply of tin. to suffice
' for the world’s wasteful uses of it.
Alaska, or at least that part of
| it here under consideration, will pro
! duce tin more cheaply perhaps than
| any other country in the world, be
cause it is coupled with gold, and
! as the by-product of profitable gold
mining operations, the influence of
| price on production will be prac
I tically nil.
j There should be for the whole
j of the Interior of Alaska more en
couragement for hope and more
| centainty of belief in its ultimate
j destiny in operations like this of
| Sylvester Howell’s than in all the
schemes of government-aided pro
jects that can be devised.
I It shows that out of the product
of Alaska's resources come the
means for their greater develop
j ment; that the faith of Alaskans
! in Alaska and her boundless possi
• bilities is the sure source of her
| greatness and power,
j Sylvester Howell, we bow to you
in acknowledgment of the greatness
I of your faith and the excellence of
\ your works. May^ success crown
your efforts. You deserve it!
! A centrifugal pump that has been
i invented in England is said to han
! die unscreen sewage of a consist
i ency that would choke any other
| type of pump.
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COLBS AIR TIGHT
HEATERS
RANGES
OF ALL DESCRIPTIONS
Yukon Stoves and Drums
Air Tight Heaters
Any Thing in the Sheet Metal, Plumb
ing or Heating Line
Tanana Sheet Metal Works
PERISCOPE THIS
WE HAVE A FULL CARGO OF WATCHES ABOARD—EACH
ONE HITS THE MARK, AS OUR PRICES ARE
SUBMERGED
The Army Wrist Watch
That Light* In the Dark—Not a Novelty, But a Nece*»ity
Our $3 Radium Treated Alarm ClocKs
JUST THE THING FOR DARK NIGHTS ^
WM. TAYLOR
WATCHMAKER JEWELER ENGRAVER
* — ' .