Digital Bob Archive

MAY 8, 1884-Placer mining has dropped off considerably in Silver Bow Basin this season. Last year about 200 miners were at work there, plus a good many Indians and laborers and packers. So far this year only about 100 miners are at work and the demand for hired labor and packers has declined. Many cabins in the Basin are now vacant and may be bought at very low prices. But work is being done on a number of the lode claims and the Webster mill is running at least a part of the time. An arastra has been built on the Perseverance claim at the head of the Basin, and prospect tunnels are being driven on several other lodes. The North Star Mining Company now has about 126 feet of tunnel in its ledge.

Many of the men who mined in Silver Bow Basin last year have gone to the Yukon to prospect. Last year there were fewer than a dozen men from this camp in that country, but this year the number will be at least 40. Fine gold has been reported from the ???qua and other tributaries on the Yukon, but so far there has been no discovery of course gold in that immense district. The old trail blazer, Edmund Bean, who led the pioneer prospectors over the Chilkoot Pass to the Yukon in 1880, went ?inside? last year but did not leave Juneau this year. Last year, he followed the Chilkat River and took an Indian trail to unexplored country behind the Saint Elias range. Indians have told him of Copper River country. Bean covered a good many miles but found the country very barren of game and, having run out of grub, had to return to Haines Mission without locating either the copper or the pass.

Others who worked in Silver Bow Basin last year, both Indians and whites have found employment this season with the Alaska Mill & Mining Company on Douglas Island, where Superintendent John Treadwell is preparing to build a large ore mill. Originally, it was said that this mill will have 12 batteries of five stamps each, with amalgamators and other equipment, but the latest word is that it is being increased to 24 batteries, or 120 stamps in all. Blasting for the foundation is being carried on and the sawmill continues to cut lumber and timbers for the mill. The present five-stamp mill is running every day on ore that is being taken from a tunnel being driven to the heart of the lode. From the end of this tunnel a shaft will be raised to the surface where an open pit has already been started. Start-up date for the new mill will be sometime in the summer of 1885.