Transcriber’s note: Table of Contents added by Transcriber.
Boldface is indicated by =equals signs=; italics by _underscores_.
CONTENTS
Recent Years of Egyptian Exploration 625
The Gold Sands of Cape Nome 633
A State Official on Excessive Taxation 645
Latest Developments With the X Rays 659
A Hundred Years of Chemistry 673
The Science of Art Form 685
Steam Turbines and High-speed Vessels 696
A Survival of Mediæval Credulity 706
Genuine Starch Factories 716
Trade Corporations in China 722
Editor’s Table 728
Fragments of Science 731
Minor Paragraphs 737
Publications Received 639
Index 741
Established by Edward L. Youmans
APPLETONS’
POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY
EDITED BY
WILLIAM JAY YOUMANS
VOL. LVI
NOVEMBER, 1899, TO APRIL, 1900
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1900
COPYRIGHT, 1900,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
APPLETONS’
POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.
APRIL, 1900.
RECENT YEARS OF EGYPTIAN EXPLORATION.
BY W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE,
PROFESSOR OF EGYPTOLOGY, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON.
Familiar as we are with the methods of science--exact observation and
record, comparison, and the strict weeding out of hypotheses--yet
such methods have only gradually been applied to various branches of
learning.
Geometry became a science long ago, zoölogy much later, medicine
only a generation or two ago, and the history of man is but just
being developed into a science. What was done for other sciences by
the pioneers of the past is now being done in the present day for
archæology. We now have to devise methods, to form a notation for
recording facts, and to begin to lay out our groundwork of knowledge.
With very few exceptions, it may be said of Egypt that there is no
publication of monuments before this century that is of the least use,
no record or dating of objects before 1860, and no comparison or study
of the history of classes of products before 1890. Thus, the work of
recent years in Egyptology is really the history of the formation of a
science.
The great stride that has been made in the last six years is the
opening up of prehistoric Egypt, leading us back some two thousand
years before the time of the pyramid builders. Till recently, nothing
was known before the age of the finest art and the greatest buildings,
and it was a familiar puzzle how such a grand civilization could have
left no traces of its rise. This was only a case of blindness on the
part of explorers. Upper Egypt teems with prehistoric remains, but,
as most of what appears is dug up by plunderers for the market, until
there is a demand for a class of objects, very little is seen of them.
Now that the prehistoric has become fashionable, it is everywhere to
be seen. The earlier diggers were dazzled by the polished colossi, the
massive buildings, the brilliant sculptures of the well-known historic
times, and they had no eyes for small graves, containing only a few
jars or, at best, a flint knife.
The present position of the prehistory of Egypt is that we can now
distinguish two separate cultures before the beginning of the Egyptian
dynasties, and we can clearly trace a sequence of manufactures and art
throughout long ages before the pyramid builders, or from say 6000 B.
C., giving a continuous history of eight thousand years for man in
Egypt. Continuous I say advisedly, for some of the prehistoric ways are
those kept up to the present time.
In the earliest stage of this prehistoric culture metal was already
used and pottery made. Why no ruder stages are found is perhaps
explained by the fact that the alluvial deposits of the Nile do not
seem to be much older than eight thousand years. The rate of deposit
is well known--very closely one metre in a thousand years--and borings
show only eight metres thick of Nile mud in the valley. Before that
the country had enough rain to keep up the volume of the river, and
it did not drop its mud. It must have run as a rapid stream through a
barren land of sand and stones, which could not support any population
except paleolithic hunters. With the further drying of the climate, the
river lost so much velocity that its mud was deposited, and the fertile
mud flats made cultivation and a higher civilization possible. At
this point a people already using copper came into the country. Their
bodies were buried in shallow, circular pit-graves, covered with goat
skins, which were fastened rarely by a copper pin; before the face was
placed a simple bowl of red and black pottery, and some of the valued
malachite was placed in the hands. The body was sharply contracted,
often with the knees almost touching the face, and the hands were
usually in front of the face.
Very soon they developed their pottery into varied and graceful forms,
and decorated it with patterns in white clay applied to the dark-red
surface, but it continued to be entirely hand-made, without the use of
the potter’s wheel. The patterns, usually copied from basketwork, show
the source of the forms of the cups and vases. The modern Kabyle, in
the highlands of Algeria, has kept up the same patterns on hand-made
pottery, and the same use of white clay on a red base. It is probably
to a Libyan people that this civilization is first due, and the
skulls of these prehistoric Egyptians are identical with those of the
prehistoric Algerians from the dolmens and the modern Algerians. This
first growth of the civilization not only developed pottery, but also
the carving of stone vases entirely by hand. The principal type of
these is the cylinder, with many small variations. Figures were carved
in alabaster and bone, and modeled in clay and paste; these are rude,
but show that the type of the race was fine, with a high forehead and
pointed beard. The use of marks denoting property was common, and such
marks seem to be the earliest stages of the system of signs which
developed later into the alphabet. This civilization had apparently
passed its best time, decoration had ceased on the pottery, when a
change came over all classes of work.
The second prehistoric civilization seems to have belonged to a people
kindred to that of the first age, as much of the pottery continued
unchanged, and only gradually faded away. But a new style arose of a
hard, buff pottery, painted with patterns and subjects in red outline.
Ships are represented with cabins on them, and rowed by a long bank
of oars. The use of copper became more general, and gold and silver
appear also. Spoons of ivory, and rarely of precious metals, were
made, but hair combs, which were common before, ceased to be worn.
Stone vases were commonly carved in a variety of hard and ornamental
stones, but always of the barrel outline and not the early cylinder
shapes. Flint-working reached the highest stage ever known in any
country, the most perfect mastery of the material having been acquired.
Though this civilization was in many respects higher than that which
preceded it, yet it was lower artistically, the figures being ruder
and always flat, instead of in the round. Also the use of signs was
driven out, and disappeared in the later stage of this second period.
The separation of these two different ages has been entirely reached
by the classification of many hundreds of tombs, the original order of
which could be traced by the relation of their contents. In this way
a scale of sequence has been formed, which enables the range of any
form of pottery or other object to be exactly stated, and every fact of
connection discovered can be at once reduced to a numerical scale as
definite as a scale of years. For the first time a regular system of
notation has been devised for prehistoric remains, and future research
in each country will be able to deal with such ages in as definite a
manner as with historic times. The material for this study has come
entirely from excavations of my own party at Nagada (1895), Abadiyeh,
and Hu (1899); but great numbers of tombs of these same ages have been
opened without record by M. de Morgan (1896-’97), and by French and
Arab speculators in antiquities.
The connection between these prehistoric ages and the early historic
times of the dynastic kings of Egypt is yet obscure. The cemeteries
which would have cleared this have unhappily been looted in the last
few years without any record, and it is only the chance of some new
discoveries that can be looked to for filling up the history. We can at
least say that the pottery of the early kings is clearly derived from
the later prehistoric types, and that much of the civilization was in
common. But it is clear that the second prehistoric civilization was
degrading and losing its artistic taste for fine work before the new
wave of the dynastic or historic Egyptians came in upon it.
These early historic people are mainly known by the remains of the
tombs of the early kings, found by M. Amelineau at Abydos (1896-’99),
and probably the first stage of the same race is seen in the rude
colossi of the god Min, which I found at Koptos (1894). Unhappily,
the work at Abydos was not recorded, and it is not known now out of
which of many kings’ tombs, nor even out of which cemeteries, the
objects have come. Hence scientific results are impossible, unless
enough material has escaped the careless and ignorant workmen to
reward more accurate reworking of the same ground. We can at present
only glean a general picture of the early royal civilization from
Abydos, supplemented by some splendid carvings of two reigns found at
Hierakonpolis (1897-’98) by Mr. Quibell.
The burials continued to be in tombs of the same form--rectangular pits
lined with brickwork and roofed over with beams and brushwood. But they
were made larger, and, in the case of the royal tombs, great halls were
formed about fifty by thirty-five feet, roofed with beams eighteen
or twenty feet long. In these royal tombs were placed a profusion of
vases of hard and beautiful stones, bowls of slate, and immense jars
of alabaster; these contained the more valuable offerings of precious
ointments and other funereal treasures. Besides these, there were
hundreds of great jars of pottery, containing provision of bread,
meats, dried fruits, water, beer, and wine. Doubtless there were many
vases of metals, but these have been almost always robbed from the tomb
anciently. Around the tomb were the small graves of the retainers of
the king, each with a lesser store like that of their master. The royal
tomb was denoted by a great tablet bearing the king’s spiritual name
by which he would be known in the future world. The private tombs had
small tablets, about a foot and a half high, with the names of their
occupants. As all these tablets show considerable weathering, it seems
that they were placed visible above the tomb. Tombs of the subsequent
kings were elaborated with small chambers around the great one, to
contain the offerings, and even a long passage was formed with dozens
of chambers along each side of it, each chamber containing a separate
kind of offering.
Turning now to some of the remains of these kings during their life,
we learn that they were occupied with frequent wars--the gradual
consolidation of the kingdom of Egypt. One king will record the myriads
of slain enemies, another gives a picture of a captive king brought
before him with over a million living captives, the regular Egyptian
notation for such large numbers being already complete. Another king
shows his triumphal entry to the temple, with the slain enemies laid
out before him. On other sculptures are shown the peaceful triumphs
of canalization and reclamation of land, which are alluded to in the
traditions of the early dynasties preserved by Greek historians. All
these scenes are given us on the slate carvings and great mace heads
covered with sculpture from Hierakonpolis.
Thus in these great discoveries of the last few years we can trace at
least three successive peoples, and see the gradual rise of the arts,
from the man who was buried in his goat skins, with one plain cup by
him, up to the king who built great monuments and was surrounded by
most sumptuous handiwork. We see the rise of the art of exquisite flint
flaking, and the decline of that as copper came more commonly into use.
We see at first the use of signs, later on disused by a second race,
and then superseded by the elaborate hieroglyph system of the dynastic
race.
The mixture of various races was surmised long ago from the varied
portraiture of the early times. It is now shown more plainly than
ever on these early monuments. We see represented the king of the
dynastic type, a scribe with long, wavy hair, a chief of the dynastic
shaven-headed type, another with long, lank hair, and another with a
beard, while the enemies are shown with curly hair and narrow beards
like Bedouin. Four different peoples are here in union against a
fifth. And this diversity of peoples lasts on long into the historic
times. After several centuries of a united Egypt, under the pyramid
builders, we find that some people buried in the old contracted
position, others cut up the body and wrapped every bone separately in
cloth, while others embalmed the body whole. Thus great diversity of
belief and custom still prevailed for perhaps a thousand years after
the unification of Egypt. So useless is it to think of “the ancient
Egyptians” as an unmixed race gradually rising into “a consciousness of
nationality.”
The excavations at Deshasheh in 1897, which first showed me the
diversity of burials, also showed that the type of the race had already
become unified by intermixture, and that, strange to say, four thousand
years later, after untold crossings with many invaders, the type was
unchanged. Later work at Dendereh and elsewhere has pointed to the
conclusion that a mixture of a new race is subdued to the type of
the country by the effect of climate and surroundings within a few
centuries.
Turning now to the purely classical Egyptian work, the principal
discoveries of the last few years have given us new leading examples
in every line. The great copper statue of King Pepy, with his son,
dates from before 3000 B. C. It is over life size, and entirely wrought
in hammered copper, showing a complete mastery in metal work of the
highest artistic power. Probably of the same age is a head of a figure
of the sacred hawk, wrought hollow in a single mass of hammered gold,
weighing over a pound; this again shows work of noble dignity and
power. Both of these were found at Hierakonpolis in 1898, and are now
in the Cairo Museum.
Some centuries later was made the exquisite jewelry found at Dahshur in
the graves of three princesses. This is a revelation of the delicacy
possible in goldsmith’s work. The soldering of the minute parts of
the gold is absolutely invisible. The figures of hawks are made up
of dozens of microscopic pieces of colored stone--lazuli, turquoise,
carnelian--every one cut to the forms of the feathers, and every piece
having a tiny cell of soldered gold strip to hold it in place, yet the
whole bird only about half an inch high. The finest colored enameling
ever made would be child’s play compared with a piece of this early
jewelry. The exquisite grace of form, harmony of coloring, and sense of
perfection leave the mind richer by a fresh emotion, after seeing such
a new world of skill. Coming down to about 1500 B. C., a large work
has been done in the last six years in clearing the temple of Queen
Hatshepsut at Deir el Bahri, on the western side of Thebes. That great
ruler had there commemorated the events of her reign, particularly
the expedition to the south of the Red Sea to obtain the plants of
the sacred incense and other valued products. The attention shown to
exact figuring of plants and animals makes this valuable as a record of
natural history. This clearance has been made by Dr. Naville for the
English fund. Meanwhile, Franco-Egyptian officials have been clearing
out the Temple of Karnak, on the opposite bank, but with disastrous
effect. The huge columns, built poorly of small blocks by Rameses II,
stand now below the level of the inundation, and, after removing the
earth accumulated around them, the Nile water has free circulation.
This has dissolved the mortar so much that nine of these Titanic
columns of the Great Hall fell last year, and three more threaten to
follow them.
The Valley of the Tombs of the Kings has been prohibited ground
to foreign explorers for over forty years, although the official
department never did any work there. The native plunderers, however,
turned up many years ago the beautiful chair of Queen Hatshepsut, and
lately they found the entry to still unopened royal tombs. The secret
passed--for a consideration--to the Department of Antiquities, and two
royal tombs were opened. These contained the bodies of several kings of
the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties--one undisturbed, the others
moved from elsewhere. With these was a crowd of objects of funereal
furniture. Unhappily, nothing is published in detail of any official
discoveries; with the exception of the first find of the Dahshur
jewelry, there has never been any full account issued of the great
discoveries in the most important sites, which are reserved to the
Government. The great group of kings found at Deir el Bahri, the great
necropolis of the priests of Amen, the second find of Dahshur jewelry,
the second group of royal mummies, of all these we know nothing but
what has appeared in newspapers, or some partial account of one branch
of the subject. Hardly any publication has ever appeared, such as
the English societies issue every year about the produce of their
excavations.
Many of the royal temples of the nineteenth dynasty at Thebes were
explored by the English in 1896. The Ramesseum was completely examined,
through all the maze of stone chambers around it. But the most
important result was the magnificent tablet of black granite, about ten
feet high and five wide, covered on one side with an inscription of
Amen Hotep III, and on the other side with an inscription of Merenptah.
The latter account, of about 1200 B. C., mentions the war with the
“People of Israel”; this is the only naming of Israel on Egyptian
records, and is several centuries earlier than any Assyrian record of
the Hebrews. It has, of course, given rise to much discussion, which is
too lengthy to state here.
One of the most important results of historical Egyptian times is the
light thrown on prehistoric Greek ages. The pottery known as “Mykenæan”
since the discoveries of Schliemann in the Peloponnesus was first dated
in Egypt at Gurob in 1889; next were found hundreds of vase fragments
at Tell el Amarna in 1892; and since then several Egyptian kings’ names
have been found on objects in Greece, along with such pottery. The
whole of this evidence shows that the grand age of prehistoric Greece,
which can well compare with the art of classical Greece, began about
1600 B. C., was at its highest point about 1400 B. C., and became
decadent about 1200 B. C., before its overthrow by the Dorian invasion.
Besides this dating, Greece is indebted to Egypt for the preservation
of the oldest texts of its classics. Fragments of Plato almost
contemporary with his lifetime, pages of Thucydides, whole books of
the Iliad, and the celebrated recent publications of Bacchylides and
Herondas, all are due to Egypt. Moreover, of Christian times we have a
leaf of an early collection of Sayings of Jesus, a leaf of gospel about
two centuries older than any other biblical manuscript, and a host of
documents bearing on early Christianity, such as the Gospel of Peter
and other apocryphal writings which were later banned by the Church.
Now it may be asked how all these discoveries are made--indeed, many
people take for granted that some government kindly pays for it all.
On the contrary, the only official influences are a severe check
on such scientific work. While a native Egyptian can plunder tombs
with but little hindrance, any one desiring to preserve objects and
promote knowledge must (after obtaining the permission of the Egyptian
Government for the exact place he wants to work) be officially
inspected at his own expense (a matter of twenty or thirty pounds a
season), and then, after all, give up to the Government half of all he
finds, without any recompense. The English Government long ago gave up
all claim for British subjects to occupy any post in the Cairo Museum,
thus putting a decisive bar on the hopes of would-be students and
hindering the object very effectually.
In face of all these disadvantages, work has yet been carried on by
the Egypt Exploration Fund and by the Egyptian Research Account; both
rely on English and American support, and the latter body is intended
expressly to help students in training. Besides these, private work has
been carried on during several years by two or three other explorers,
partly at their own cost, partly helped by friends. The two societies
above named have kept to the principles that everything shall be
published as soon as possible, and that all the antiquities removed
from Egypt shall be divided among public museums as gifts in return
for the support from various places, nothing ever being sold publicly
or privately. In this way several centers in America send large annual
contributions, have representatives on the London Committee of the
Exploration Fund, and receive their share for museums every year.
Besides this organizing of ways and means, there is quite as important
organization needed in the excavations. At present most of the
above-named work is done by a corps of men who have been engaged at
it for many years. They leave their homes and assemble as soon as the
winter begins; any dealing in antiquities or misconduct since the last
season excludes them from rejoining. They each know their work, what
to preserve, how to leave everything intact in the ground where found,
and how best to manage different kinds of excavating. With such men it
is always possible to screw more information out of a site, however
much it may have been already wrecked in ancient or modern times. And
it is far safer to leave such men unwatched, with the certainty that
they will receive a fair value for all they find, than it is to drive a
gang under the lash, on bare wages, without rewards to keep them from
pilfering. The English system means mutual confidence and good faith;
the native and French system of force means the destruction of both
information and antiquities.
And yet besides this there is the essential business of observing and
recording. Every hole dug must have a meaning and be understood, as to
the date of the ground at different levels and the nature of the place.
Everything must be spelled out as the work advances; any difficulties
that can not be explained must be tried with all possible hypotheses;
each detail must either fall into place as agreeing with what is known,
or be built in as a new piece of knowledge.
Twenty years ago nothing was known of the date of any Egyptian
manufactures, not even of pottery or beads, which are the commonest.
Now, at present it is seldom that anything is found which can not be
dated tolerably near by, and in some classes of remains the century or
even the reign can be stated at once, without a single word to show it.
The science of Egyptian archæology is now in being.
In this, therefore, as in many other matters, the Anglo-Saxon taste
for private enterprise is the ruling power, and in spite of political
obstacles and of taxation, which are happily unknown in other sciences,
the private work of individuals has quietly traced out the foundations
of one of the earliest civilizations of mankind.
THE GOLD SANDS OF CAPE NOME.
BY PROF. ANGELO HEILPRIN,
LATE PRESIDENT OF THE PHILADELPHIA GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY.
One of the most interesting contributions to the history of gold and
gold mining has undoubtedly been discovered in the region of Cape
Nome, Alaska, during the past summer. Vague reports have from time to
time, for a period of a year or more, been sent out from the bleak
and inhospitable shores of Bering Sea of the discovery there of rich
deposits of placer gold, and of almost fabulous wealth acquired by a
few fortunate prospectors--a new Klondike on American soil--but these
gained little credence beyond the portals of transportation companies
and the organizers of “boom” enterprises. A few of the more credulous
and those unmindful of adventure and hardship took practical action on
the receipt of the reports, and prepared to buffet the still ice-bound
waters of the Pacific to gain early access to the new land of promise.
In a brief period the fame of Golovnin Bay had been spread broadcast,
only to be again dimmed by the later announcements that the earlier
reports of finds were only “fakes.” Making and unmaking are a part of
all new mining centers, and in an incredibly short time all manner of
conclusions are arrived at regarding the possibilities of a location.
[Illustration: AN OFF-SHORE VIEW OF NOME.]
New reports of finds made along the coast of Bering Sea, about fifty
miles west of Golovnin Bay, called renewed attention to the region,
and those who in the early summer of the past year (1899) timidly
ventured their fortunes to share in a possible discovery, found, on
their arrival at the tundra-bound shores about Cape Nome, that miles of
territory had already been located as claim sites, that sluice-boxes
were in full operation, and that sackfuls of gold dust and nuggets had
been carefully laid to one side, representing “outputs” of tens of
thousands of dollars. At this time many of the journals of civilization
in the East, repeating the warnings that they persistently threw out
following the discovery of gold in the Klondike, jealously guarded
the secrets of the earth by doubting, or even denying, the claims
to discovery, but, withal, wisely counseling against that haphazard
and purseless rush which is one of the invariable accompaniments of
gold announcements. A new mining district had suddenly sprung into
existence, and before two months had passed--i. e., by the early days
of September--a full front of tents and frame houses took possession
of what continues to remain a dreary and desolate expanse of ocean
beach--sufficiently pleasant in the quiet, balmy days of summer and
autumn, but wofully exposed to the hurricane blasts of the arctic
winter--and gave shelter to from three to four thousand adventurers,
where formerly a few Indians and Eskimos from the still farther
northwest and King’s Island constituted a straggling and accidental
population. This, in brief, is the initial history of the Nome or Anvil
City mining region, which will almost certainly call to it in the
coming spring fifteen to twenty thousand additional inhabitants.
[Illustration: A STREET IN NOME.]
Far more interesting to the one who has not been properly rewarded
in his search for placer claims than the placer deposits themselves
are the gold-bearing beach sands, whose productivity will mainly be
responsible for the influx of population to the new region. From them,
by crude and simple methods, has been taken, in barely more than two
months, gold to the value of more than a million dollars, and what the
possibilities for the future may be no one is wise enough to tell. So
clearly exaggerated did the accounts of the free-sand rocking appear,
even those coming from reputable miners who were personally known to
me, that I could hardly bring myself to take them at their full value,
but, being accidentally drifted in the course of a summer’s wanderings
to St. Michael, above the mouth of the Yukon River, I had easy
opportunity to verify for myself the accuracy of the statements that
had been sent out, and to cast a geological glance at the situation. My
examination of the region was confined to a few of the later days of
September and to early October.
The geographical position of the Nome region is the southern face of
the peninsular projection of Alaska which separates Kotzebue Sound on
the north from Bering Sea on the south, and terminates westward in
Cape Prince of Wales the extent of the North American continent. In
a direct line of navigation, it lies about twenty-five hundred miles
northwest of Seattle and one hundred and seventy miles southeast of
Siberia. The nearest settlement of consequence to it prior to 1899
was St. Michael, a hundred miles to the southeast, the starting point
of the steamers for the Yukon River; but during the year various
aggregations of mining population had built themselves up in closer
range, and reduced the isolation from the civilized world by some sixty
miles. The Nome district as settled centers about the lower course of
the Snake River, an exceedingly tortuous stream in its tundra course,
which emerges from a badly degraded line of limestone, slaty, and
schistose mountain spurs generally not over seven hundred to twelve
hundred feet elevation, but backed by loftier granitic heights, and
discharges into the sea at a position thirteen miles west of Cape Nome
proper. Three miles east of this mouth is the discharge of Nome River.
Both streams have a tidal course of several miles. Nome, or, as it was
first called, Anvil City--named from a giant anvil-like protrusion of
slate rock near to the summit of the first line of hills--occupies in
greater part the tundra and ocean beach of the eastern or left bank of
Snake River, but many habitations, mainly of a temporary character,
have been placed on the bar beach which has been thrown up by the sea
against the mouth of the stream, and deflected its course for some
distance parallel with the ocean front. A number of river steamers (one
even of considerable size) and dredges have found a suitable anchorage
or “harbor” in the barrier-bound waters, and much driftwood passes into
them at times of storms and higher waters, when the greatly constricted
and shallow mouth is made passable. The entire region is treeless, and
the nearest approach to woodland is in the timber tract of Golovnin
Bay and its tributaries, about forty miles to the northeast. A fairly
dense growth of scrub willow, three to five feet in height, with elms
and alders, forms a fringe or delimiting line to parts of the courses
of the streams in the tundra, which greatly undulates in the direction
of the foothills and incloses tarnlike bodies of fresh and slightly
brackish waters. It is covered merely with a low growth of flowering
herbaceous plants, grass, and moss, with a somewhat scantier admixture
of the dwarf birch, arctic willow, and crowberry. The surface is
pre-eminently swampy during the warmer periods of the year, and walking
over it means either wading through the water or risking continuous
jumps to and from the individual clumps of matted grass and moss--the
so-called “nigger-heads.” The greater part of the tundra seems to rest
on gravel and sand--doubtless of both marine and fluviatile origin--and
ordinarily the frozen stratum is already reached at a depth of two or
three feet, sometimes less. In early October of the past year it was
still too “open” to permit of easy walking over it, but in quite early
hours of the morning the surface afforded fair lodgment to moderate
weights. Fragmentary parts of the skeleton of the mammoth have been
found here and there, even loose on the top grass, but where found
in such situations it is by no means certain that they had not been
redeposited by high tidal wash. A large fragment of thigh bone, with
shoulder blade, which I found about an eighth of a mile inland and
perhaps fifteen feet above the water, was associated with one of
the mandibular bones of the whale. I could obtain no information as
to their having been possibly carried to their present position by
man, but it may have been the case. A large skull, which I owe to the
kindness of Mr. Inglestadt and to Mr. Louis Sloss, Jr., manager of the
Alaska Commercial Company, was obtained, as nearly as I could determine
through inquiry on the spot, from about the same locality. Where it
abuts upon the sea the tundra stands from eight to twenty feet above
it, at places descending to even lower levels. The sea face is almost
everywhere an abrupt one, showing undercutting by high water, and it
is continued by a broad, rapidly sloping sand and shingle beach, which
packs firmly, and almost immediately beneath the surface exhibits a
distinctly stratified construction--the alternate layers of fine, flat
gravel, coarse, clayey sand, and finer “ruby” (fragmented garnet) sand
sloping like the surface, although generally with a milder pitch, to
the sea.
[Illustration: A NATIVE OF THE LAND OF NOME.]
The open sea front, with inland tundra, is continued for a distance
of about fourteen miles westward of Nome, where it is interrupted
by the mountains, in a west-southwest course, reaching the sea;
flat-topped Sledge Island, so much recalling in aspect some of the
islands lying off Whale Sound, in the northwest of Greenland, is their
oceanic continuation for some distance, with sharp breaks on both the
oceanic and inner sides. It is probable that much of the _débris_
that has resulted from the disruption of the mountain masses has been
distributed littorally by the sea, with an eastward wash, to form the
bars and shallows which for some distance stretch along the coast;
nor is it impossible that some of the giant bowlders of limestone,
marble, granite, and syenite which are found on the margin of the
beach about four or five miles west of Nome, some of them measuring
eight and twelve feet or more in diameter, and all of them smoothly
rounded and evenly polished, represent a part of this destruction.
At the same time, there is good reason to suspect that they may have
been deposited by ice action, either as erratics of floe ice coming
from the northwest, or of glacial distribution from the region of the
mountains. Whatever may have been the final stage in the history of the
amphitheater of Nome (the region included between Cape Nome and Sledge
Island), which my limited observation did not permit me to determine
to full satisfaction, it is almost certain, even in the absence
of the ordinary glacial testimony, that the region is one of past
glaciation, and that much of the gravel and bowlder material of the
ocean front is of morainic origin, so modified and altered in position
by readjustments of the land and water as to have lost its proper
physiographic contours. The aspect of the hills and valleys is almost
precisely that of some of the regions of Greenland which have only
quite recently been vacated by the glaciers, while the composition of
the shingle--the inclusion over so long a front of bowlders from beyond
the first line of mountain heights, many of them most markedly grooved
and polished--is also highly suggestive of glacial deposition.
[Illustration: THE HARBOR OF SNAKE RIVER (NOME).]
The gold sands, or sands that are worked for gold, are merely the
ordinary materials of the beach, loose and incoherent like most
seashore sands, and particularly defining horizons three to six
feet below the surface. In regular stratified layers, with fine and
moderately coarse gravel, they embrace four or five distinct layers of
fragmented garnets (the components of the so-called “ruby sand”), and
it is from these, and at this time almost exclusively from the bottom
layer of three to five inches thickness, which is popularly described
as lying on “bed rock”--in most places merely a hard-pan of arenaceous
clay or argillaceous sand, with no true rock to define it--that most of
the gold is obtained. Each ruby band nearer to the top seems to contain
less and less gold, and there is no question that the different layers
are merely reformations by the sea from those of earlier deposition,
just as surface shingle deposits generally are in part reconstructions
of underlying beds. That the ocean is to-day depositing the ruby sand
is unmistakably shown by the great patches of this sand lying on the
surface and its incoming in the path of nearly every storm. Even these
surface sands are mildly gold-bearing, showing that the gold, despite
its high specific gravity, may be buoyed up and wafted in by such a
light medium as water when it has been reduced to sufficiently minute
particles or scalelike forms. It is little wonder that a general belief
has gained currency with the more enthusiastic locators that the sand
gold is a deposition or precipitate from the sea.
The gold itself occurs in an exceedingly fine state of subdivision, too
fine in most cases to be caught without mercury or the best arrangement
of “blanketings.” Much of it is really in the condition of colors
dissected nearly to their finest particles, and it is hardly surprising
that it should have so long escaped detection. Occasionally pieces to
the value of three to six cents are obtained in the pans, and I was
witness to the finding of a scale with the value of perhaps nearly
twenty cents. The usual magnetitic particles are associated with the
gold, and their origin can clearly be traced to the magnetite which
is so abundantly found in some of the schists (micaceous, chloritic,
and talcose schists), which, judged by the fragments and bowlders
that everywhere lie in the path of the streams of the tundra, must be
closely similar to the series of schists of the Klondike region. The
particles of fragmented garnet, which by their astonishing abundance
give so distinctive a coloring to the layers which they compose or
constitute, are of about the ordinary fineness of seashore sand,
perhaps a trifle coarser, but occasionally much coarser particles or
masses of particles are found; and in the placer deposits of Anvil
Creek, as in the bunch of claims around “Discovery”--about five miles
due north of Nome--fragments of the size of lentils are not uncommon.
I have seen full garnets obtained from the wash here which were of the
size of small peas. Nodules of manganese (manganite, pyrolusite) are at
intervals found with them, and some stream-tin (cassiterite), as in the
Klondike region, also appears to be present. Apart from the evidence
that is brought down by the magnetite and garnet, it would naturally be
assumed that the gold had its primal source in the mountains back of
the coast. These, as has already been stated, have undergone exhaustive
degradation, and the materials resulting from their destruction,
in whatever way brought about, have been thrown into the sea, and
there adjusted and readjusted--or, so far as the gold particles are
concerned, one might say “concentrated.” Latterly, and perhaps this is
also true to-day, the land has undergone elevation, and exposed much
that until recently properly belonged to the sea. The tundra is a part
of this ocean floor, and it too doubtless contains much gold, perhaps
even very much.
The length of the sea strip that was worked during the past summer,
and so far in autumn as the clemency of the weather permitted, covered
a nearly continuous thirty or thirty-five miles, extending beyond
Synrock on the west and, with interruptions, to Nome River on the east.
The full extent of the auriferous sands remains unknown, however, and
report claims for them reappearances throughout the entire coast as
far as Cape Prince of Wales. The season’s work gave easy and lucrative
employment to perhaps fifteen hundred, mostly needy, prospectors, who
realized on an average certainly not less than fifteen dollars per day,
and many as much as sixty, seventy, and eighty dollars. It is claimed,
and I have little reason to doubt the truthfulness of the statement,
that from a single rocker, although operated by two men, one hundred
and fifty dollars had been taken out in the course of nine hours’
work. It is also asserted that two men realized a fortune of thirteen
thousand dollars as the result of their combined season’s work, and
two others are said to have rocked out forty-five hundred dollars in
the period of a month. Women have, to an extent, shared with men the
pleasures of “rocking gold from the sea,” and their application in
the toils of the sea plow, with booted forms, rolled-up sleeves, and
sunbonnets, was certainly an interesting variation on the borders
of the Arctic Circle from the scenes one has grown accustomed to at
Atlantic City or Newport.
[Illustration: ERECTING A STEAM PUMP (NOME).]
The placer deposits of the Nome district are in the form of shallow,
largely or mostly unfrozen gravels, which occupy varying heights,
partly in disrupted or overhanging benches, of the valleys and gulches
which trench the slate and limestone mountains. Perhaps the most
favored ones are those of Anvil and Glacier Creeks (with Snow Gulch
as an affluent of the latter), tributaries of Snake River, and Dexter
Creek, a tributary of Nome River. My time and the conditions of weather
permitted only of a visit to Anvil Creek, and an examination mainly of
the properties about “Discovery.” The diggings here are all shallow,
from four to seven feet, when bed-rock, a steeply pitching and highly
fissile slate, is reached. As before remarked, the gravels are not
frozen, and thereby present a marked contrast to the condition that
prevails in the Klondike region, and one, it is hardly necessary to
state, which is eminently to the favor of economy in mining. A layer
of ice, about eight inches in thickness, covers one side of the layers
in claim “No. 1 below,” but beneath this the matrix is again open. In
all these claims the pay-streak was at first reported to be very broad,
but it seems that the later work has narrowed down the probabilities
of extension very measurably--at any rate, in the condition of a rich
producer. Of the wealth contained in these claims there is no question,
but it would probably be straining the truth to say that it is the
equal of that of the best or even the better claims of the Klondike
region. A two days’ clean-up from “No. 1 below” is reported to have
yielded thirteen thousand dollars, while the entire product of that
claim from July 26th, when the first wash was made, to September 21st,
was placed at one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. Claim “No.
1 above” appears to be equally good, and “Discovery” falls perhaps
not very far below either. A nugget of the value of three hundred
and twelve dollars--a magnificent specimen, measuring upward of four
inches in length--was obtained from the tailings of “No. 1 below”; a
larger one, of the value of four hundred and thirty-four dollars, is
to the credit of “No. 1 above.” It is interesting to note that these
rich claims are located at the very issuance of Anvil Creek from the
mountains--i. e., at the contact with the upper rise of the tundra--and
other good properties are found still lower down, a condition which
makes it certain that the inner reaches of the tundra, whatever the
whole tundra may be, must yield largely in gold.
[Illustration: “DIGGING” THE SEASHORE SANDS FOR GOLD.]
The city of Nome itself might properly be termed a model of production.
Before the end of June, 1899, there was practically nothing on its
present site; in early July it was still a place of tents, but by
the middle of September it had blossomed out into a constructed town
of three to four thousand inhabitants, more than one half of whom
were properly housed in well-built cabins, the lumber for which was
in part brought from a distance of two thousand miles, and none of
it from less than one hundred miles. Numerous stores and saloons had
arranged themselves on both sides of a well-defined street (which was
here and there centrally interrupted by building transgressions), the
familiar signs of dancing and boxing bouts were displayed in front of
more than comfortably filled faro and roulette establishments, and
in a general way the site wore the aspect of riding a boom swell.
And indeed there was plenty of activity, for the final weeks of fine
weather warned of the impending wintry snows and blasts, and much had
to be done individually to shield one from these and other discomforts.
There was at that time a threatening shortage in building material,
and fears were expressed for those who seemingly would be obliged
to spend the winter months--a dreary expanse of nearly one half the
year, with hurricane blasts of icy wind blowing with a velocity of
fifty to eighty miles an hour, and under the not very comfortable
temperature of -40° to -60° F.--in the frail shelter of tents. How
many, if any, remained in this condition can not now be known. Much
driftwood and some coal had been secured by many of the more fortunate
inhabitants, and it is possible that some provision has been made by
which everybody of the two or three thousand wintering inhabitants
will receive a proper measure of heating substance, without which the
utmost discomfort must prevail. The last coal before my departure sold
for seventy-five dollars per ton, but I suspect that later importations
must have realized the better part of double this amount. In early
October flour could still be purchased for seven to eight dollars per
sack, and meat for a dollar a pound, but these prices were run up
very materially in the period of the next two weeks. Good meals were
only a dollar, and fractions of meals could be had for twenty-five
and fifty cents. Magnificent oranges were only a quarter apiece, and
watermelons four and five dollars. All these prices were, at the
least, doubled before the first week in November, when the locality
was finally cut off from contact with the rest of the civilized world.
The principal commercial houses doing trade in Alaska--as the Alaska
Commercial Company, the North American Trading and Transportation
Company, the Alaska Exploration Company, all of which, besides others,
have their agencies in Dawson and at various stations on the Yukon
River--have well-constructed, iron-sheathed warehouses, and carry large
lines of goods. The energy which in so short a period has planted
these interests here, and in so substantial a manner, is certainly
astonishing. Who a year ago could have expected that the needs of a
resident population situated close under the Arctic Circle, and along
the inhospitable shores of Bering Sea, would have demanded depots of
sale of the size of those that one finds in cities of importance in the
civilized South?
Nome prints to-day three newspapers, the first issue of the first
journal, the Nome News, appearing about the 10th of October. Its
selling price was twenty-five cents. Up to the time of my leaving,
there were no serious disturbances of any kind, but indications of
trouble, resulting from the disputed rights of possession, whether in
the form of squatter sovereignty or of purchase, were ominously in the
air, and it was feared that should serious trouble of any kind arise,
neither the military nor civil authorities would be in a position
to properly cope with it. It was freely admitted that the community
was not under the law that so strongly forces order in Dawson and
the Klondike region. Much more to be feared than disturbance, for at
least the first season, is the possibility of conflagration; closely
packed as are the tents and shacks, with no available water supply for
combating flames, a headway of fire can not but be a serious menace
to the entire location, and one which is in no way lessened through
the general indraught of hurricane winds. The experiences of Dawson
should have furnished a lesson, but they have seemingly not done so,
nor has apparently the average inhabitant profited in any effort to
ward off the malignant influences arising from hard living, unnecessary
exposure to the inclemencies of the weather, and a non-hygienic diet.
Hence, typhoid or typho-malarial disease, even if not in a very
pronounced form, has already sown its seeds of destruction, and warns
of the dangers which here, as in Dawson, man brings to himself in his
customary contempt for the working of Nature’s laws.
A STATE OFFICIAL ON EXCESSIVE TAXATION.
BY FRANKLIN SMITH.