bearing territory thus far explored is the American side of the 141st degree of longitude, which is the accepted boundary line. The most sensational discoveries have been on the British side, about 60 miles to the east of the line.

On the American side gold has been found in liberal quantities along a number of creeks, Forty Mile creek, Sixty Mile creek and Birch creek having been developed in the order named. Forty Mile Post, Fort Cudahy and Circle City are the distributing points for these diggings, and Circle City is the most important of these mining camps. On the British side, the Klondike River and the Eldorado and Bonanza Creeks, tributary to it near its junction with the Yukon, have proved the miners' paradise. There is a group of creeks very near the boundary, tributary to Sixty-mile Creek, which have contributed most generously to the gold supply. Ogilvie, the Canadian surveyor, has placed these on his map east of the boundary and in Canadian territory, but there are some who dispute the accuracy of this survey.

Miller Creek, up to the time of the discovery of Klondike, was credited with the richest diggings along the Yukon in proportion to their

extent. Over $300,000 was taken out last season. The creek is only six miles long, but fifty-four claims were staked out on it. The creek is surrounded at short distances by Poker, Davis, Glacier and Little Gold Creeks, all running into Sixty-mile Creek.

Munook creek runs into the Tanana, near its junction with the Yukon. It is the farthest west of all the diggings. Rich pay has been found there, and miners have been pouring in of late.

The Klondike river enters the Yukon from the east at a bend about 200 miles east of Circle City, and fifty miles north of Sixty-mile Creek. From Sixty-mile Creek the course of the Yukon is due north to the Klondike and then it starts again toward the west. The copper vein of Ogilvie and Wilson crosses the Yukon just at this point and the Indians have had a fishing camp there for years, the Klondike having been noted for its salmon. Its waters are clear and shallow, as befits it source up along the snow-capped ranges.

"Klondike" is a corruption of the Indian name. Mr. Ogilvie, the Canadian surveyor, says t should be Thron-Diuck, and that is the form given in Canadian official reports. At the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey it is said the

word ought really to be spelled "Tlondak," which is Indian for "fishing grounds," and that is the name given to the stream which has now become synonymous with Eldorado in maps which were made in 1887 by Mr. McGrath, the Coast Survey official detailed at that time to explore a country which was then quite unknown. McGrath very nearly starved to death on the very spot whence millions of dollars in yellow metal have been taken during the last twelve months, and he never suspected the presence at that immediate place of the precious metal. But that is another story.

Miners have been taking out gold since 1886 from the placer diggings on the American side of the line. The earliest diggings were at Forty Mile Creek, about sixty miles east of the Klondike, and then came discoveries at Sixty Mile Creek, a little farther south, and at Birch Creek, a good deal farther west. Of these diggings those along Birch Creek have been the most profitable, and the camp of Circle City, which was founded in the fall of 1894, was for a time a place of considerable importance. It was the distributing point for the whole region and was, in a measure, the metropolis of the Yukon Val

ley. Now it has been eclipsed, for a time, at any rate, by the new settlement at Dawson City. Circle City has the great advantage, however, of being on American soil, for whatever the present temporary tendency, it is believed by those who have studied the country most closely that the American side of the 141st parallel of longitude, which constitutes the Alaskan boundary, will eventually prove the richest and most profitable portion of the gold-bearing territory. Over 500 men wintered at Circle City last year. The town, which is situated near the head waters of the Yukon, about 170 miles from Forty Mile Creek, is laid off in streets, with the main street facing the river, and it is so near to Birch Creek that a portage of six miles brings it to the banks of Birch Creek, two hundred miles from the mouth, and thus in a position to bring the gold dust taken out of this great American gold-bearing basin to the navigable waters of the Yukon. The gold diggings on American soil which have been prospected extend from the 141st to the 146th degree of longitude. The Klondike region is just to the west of the 141st degree, Dawson City being situated at the junction of the Klondike and Yukon, about sixty miles to the west.