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

ing $2.15 per day. This was not a discovery calculated to encourage further attempts, but about this time many other small parties began to force their way through the Chilkoot Pass farther and farther up the lakes and the rivers. All of them found gold in greater or less quantities. The first party to discover gold in really paying quantities in the Yukon Basin consisted of four miners, who crossed the range in 1881 and descended the Lewis River as far as the Big Salmon River, ascending that stream for over two hundred miles and finding gold on all its bars. The Cassiar Bar was not located until 1886, and up until a comparatively recent time this was the richest of all the bars prospected near the Yukon or any of its tributaries. It was in the same year that coarse gold was found on Forty Mile Creek on American soil several hundred miles down the river. This discovery drew off all the miners who had been digging in the upper river country on Canadian territory. The bars at Forty Mile Creek were worked for some years at a good profit, but they have now been abandoned owing to the discovery of coarse gold more easily accessible in the gulches. Forty Mile Creek, which will always be of interest from the fact that it

was the scene of the first touch of gold excitement in Alaska, owes its name to the fact that it en*ters the Yukon about forty miles from Old Fort Reliance. It is about two hundred and fifty miles long and has many tributaries, all of which carry gold in paying quantities. Sixty Mile Creek enters the Yukon River from the southwest and about seventy miles above the mouth of the Stewart. It has given up excellent yields of gold, and about 100 miners have wintered every year of late at a trading post and a saw mill which have been established on one of its islands Birch Creek was not prospected until 1893, and then only just enough to show that the country was rich with gold. In the season of 1894 nearly one hundred men prospected this country and staked off their claims. It was found that bedrock was much nearer the surface than in the Forty Mile Creek district, and the claims yielded very good returns. They drew many men away from the Forty Mile Creek mine.

The mining of these regions is still in its infancy, although it has been going on in more or less desultory fashion for the last fifteen years, and only a few of the most accessible streams have ever been prospected. All the larger rivers