seems to be certain that none was ever found there before 1860, although it is said that some of the Hudson Bay Company's men ran on to gold at about that time. But if they did the discovery was never followed up, and they are hardly entitled to the credit. It does not appear that the Russians, during their ownership and occupation of the country, ever instituted any thorouh search for the precious metals. It is true that gold was discovered by Doroshin on the Kenai Peninsula in 1848, and that he afterwards, in 1850-51, made further explorations of the same neihborhood, but it has always been charged that the Russian-American Company, regarding, as it did, any effort to develop the mineral resources of the country as in the highest degree inimical to the business in which it was wholly engaged and of which it held an exclusive monopoly, induced him, by the payment of a consideration, to suppress the truth in regard to what he may really have discovered. There is a tradition, too, among old Russian residents that a Russian engineer sent out by the Imperial Government to examine and report on the mineral resources of the country, made some rich discoveries on Baranoff Island, which he reported in Sitka,

whereupon, being of convivial habits, he was taken in charge by the governor, who was also the company's manager, by whom he was wined and dined and his appetite for drink ministered to until he sank into a drunkard's grave, and was thus prevented from making any report of his discoveries to the Imperial Government. Doroshin did, however, report finding gold. on the Kaknu River, which empties into Cook's Inlet, though it appears that his explorations were wholly confined to an examination of the alluvial sands of the streams and gulches in that neighborhood. To the fact that the Russian-American Company, like the Hudson Bay and American Fur Companies, believed that its interests would be jeopardized by the bringing to light of any natural resources which would invite immigration, and thus tend to the early settlement and development of the country, is no doubt due the further fact that nothing was publicly known before the transfer of the existence in Alaska of gold and silver in paying quantities.

So far as is known, the first genuine prospector in the Yukon region was one George Holt, who is declared to have been the first white man to cross the coast range for that purpose. About

all that is known of Holt is that he made his journey in 1878, but nobody seems to know what path he followed or whether he took the trail over the Chilkoot or White Pass. It is known only that he descended the chain of lakes above the Chilkoot Pass, which have since been traversed by so many other seekers after gold, that he followed the Indian trail to the Hootalinqua River and that he returned the same way in the fall. The Hootalinqua River region, which he penetrated, is about two hundred and fifty miles to the southwest of the Klondike. Holt reported that he found coarse gold near there, but no coarse gold has been discovered in that region since, although flour gold has been yielded up from the bars of the river. In any event, Holt did not find encouragement enough to continue his exploration. The next that is known is the expedition of Edward Bean, who started out from Sitka in 1880 at the head of a prospecting party. There were twenty-five men in the company. They crossed Chilkoot Pass to Lake Lindemann, built boats and descended the Lewis River as far as the Hootalinqua. Their success amounted to the finding of gold in a small stream fifteen miles above the canon yield