Established by Edward L. Youmans
APPLETONS'
POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY
EDITED BY
WILLIAM JAY YOUMANS
VOL. LV
MAY TO OCTOBER, 1899
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1899
COPYRIGHT, 1899,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
[Illustration: WILLIAM KEITH BROOKS.]
APPLETONS' POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
JULY, 1899.
SCIENTIFIC METHOD AND ITS APPLICATION TO THE BIBLE.
BY THE REV. DAVID SPRAGUE, B. D.
"Trained and organized common sense" is Professor Huxley's definition
of science. There is probably no better.
The popular mind persists in thinking that there is a wide difference
between science and knowledge in general. Yes, there is a wide
difference, but it is just the difference that there is between a
trained and organized _body_ of men for the accomplishing of some
great work, and a _crowd_ of men unorganized and undisciplined. What
unscientific knowledge has accomplished may be roughly seen in the
condition of savage races to-day; while the changes wrought by
knowledge trained and organized, in enlarging the sum of knowledge, in
extending men's power of perception, and in increasing the facilities
not merely for living, but for living well, are changes in comparison
with which all others recorded in history are trifling.
It will be profitable for us, in order to get a clearer idea of
scientific method, to trace as briefly as possible the history of
science and the development of the scientific idea.
The very beginning of science is beyond our ken. We can form no idea
of just what stage in the intellectual development of the race
witnessed the rise of training and order in men's knowledge. Long
before the dawn of history there must have been some degree of
orderliness in men's knowledge--some grouping of facts, and reasoning
from one thing to another. Rude classification would be made, e. g.,
among animals, as some were found to be good for food and others not;
so among herbs, as to size, form, color, use for food and medicine,
poisonous qualities, etc.; so among woods, as some were better
adapted than others to use as instruments of war and of the chase. Men
must also, very early in their development, have noticed the changes
that took place in the heavens: the sun by day, the moon and the stars
by night; have grouped the stars into little clusters here and there
as they seemed rudely to resemble forms of things which they knew, and
as some were brighter than the rest; have begun to reckon periods of
time according as position of sun and moon varied. In their
observation of the heavens no other phenomenon would have attracted as
much attention as an eclipse, and for a long time men would have
ascribed this occasional phenomenon to the intervention of some
supernatural power. In process of time, however, as their observations
were made with more care and recorded, some regularity would be
noticed in these, as in other phenomena of the skies; and the period
of their recurrence being at last approximately known by those more
learned than the rest, predictions of eclipses would be made and
verified by what would seem to the multitude direct supernatural aid.
Hence the earliest scientific records that have come down to us are of
eclipses observed, and in time regularly predicted, by the Chaldeans;
hence also the reputation that was always given to the Chaldeans of
having magical power. Coming down now to the time when men first
seemed to have a genuine spirit of scientific inquiry, we find it
among the Greeks some five hundred years B. C. Whatever of rudely
scientific work had been done before, seems to have been for practical
or religious purposes. About that time, however, men began to
investigate and speculate in order to find out the truth, and soon we
see a class of men, known as philosophers, whose one aim was to find
out, because they loved, the truth. "What they saw excited them to
meditate, to conjecture, and to reason; they endeavored to account for
natural events, to trace their causes, to reduce them to principles"
(Whewell). They set about this, too, in no small, narrow way. They
wanted to go right to the bottom of things, of everything at once, and
to know the great principles, as they called them, of Nature and of
life. That was the reason why the actual scientific results of Greek
thought, with all its splendid powers, were so meager. Two things are
the necessary conditions of science--facts, and the human power of
reasoning. Two processes must be carried out in order to yield any
scientific result: facts must be patiently accumulated, and the mind
must set its reasoning powers to work on them. It was in the first of
these that the Greeks were wanting. They did not realize the need of
endless patience in learning the details of Nature's way of working.
They wished to take in all of Nature with one tremendous sweep of
thought. They did a little investigating and a great deal of
reasoning. Occasionally, however, we find an instance of inquiry into
the cause of more definite and limited phenomena, which seems much
more to suggest the true spirit of physical inquiry. We have one
recorded by Herodotus, which is the more remarkable from being so
nearly alone. It is in reference to the fact which he had observed
about the flooding of the Nile--that it was flooded for one hundred
days, beginning with the summer solstice; and that from that time it
diminished, and was during the winter months very low. He tells us
that he made pressing inquiries about the cause of it from many of the
Egyptians, but that he found no satisfaction, and apparently little
interest in the matter. Three different theories on the subject that
had been propounded by the Greeks he examines in detail and confutes;
and finally he states a theory of his own. And yet even in this
instance of scientific inquiry he commits the usual fault of the
Greeks--he does not pursue far enough the investigation of the facts
of the case, and the absence of the facts he tries to make up for by
exhaustive arguments on words used in describing the phenomena.
Strange as it may seem at a first glance, it is a very similar trouble
that we find with the reasoning of Aristotle. It seems strange, I say,
because we are accustomed to associate with Aristotle just those
things which would seem to indicate a scientific temper, and to give
promise of great results: 1. Extensive accumulation of facts. Many of
those works of Aristotle which remain to us are vast treasuries of
facts collected from almost every field of Nature, and we have reason
for thinking that he made other wonderful collections of facts which
have not come down to us. His work has been a standing marvel to all
time. 2. Extraordinary powers of reasoning. 3. The fact that he
asserted in the strongest terms the need of building up the whole
superstructure of knowledge on _experience_. And yet throughout his
works, side by side with the evidences of profound knowledge and
profound speculation, there are repeated instances of reasonings which
are not only unsound, but altogether puerile--e. g., in the beginning
of his treatise on the heavens he proves the world to be perfect by
reasoning of the following kind: "The bodies of which the world is
composed are solids, and therefore have three dimensions. Now, three
is the most perfect number; it is the first of numbers, for of one we
do not speak as a number; of two we say both; but three is the first
number of which we say all; moreover, it has a beginning, a middle,
and an end." That is a fair instance of his scientific incompetency.
He has the facts, he is able to reason, but he does not reason
_according to_ the facts; he loses sight of them and builds up great
arguments on words and names. To give one more example: "He is
endeavoring to explain the fact that when the sun's light passes
through a hole, whatever be the form of the hole, the bright image,
if formed at any considerable distance from the hole, is circular.
This, of course, is easily seen to be a necessary consequence of the
circular figure of the sun, if we conceive light to be diffused from
the luminary by means of straight rays proceeding from every point.
But Aristotle attempts to explain the fact by saying that the sun's
light has a circular nature which it always tends to manifest. He
employs the vague and loose conception of a circular _quality_ instead
of the distinct conception of rays" (Whewell).
It is a kind of reasoning which may be applied with great show of
success to everything, but which really proves nothing.
And so, as a matter of fact, Aristotle did not leave one single
scientific generalization of value to succeeding ages.
Did not the Greeks then do anything in the way of physical science
that was to stand? Yes, there was a little work that was exact, and
therefore lasting. Archimedes established the fundamental principle on
the one hand of the lever, on the other of pressure in fluids--that is
to say, laid the stable foundation of the sciences of statics and
hydrostatics. Euclid developed, if he did not discover, the law of the
reflection of light. Pythagoras discovered, and his followers
developed, some of the fundamental principles of harmonics. Greater
than any of the others in genuine scientific work was Hipparchus, who,
with many erroneous theories, yet really laid the permanent foundation
of the science of astronomy. Only one more name need be mentioned
among the ancients--that of Ptolemy, who seemed possessed of a
genuinely scientific spirit. He accomplished little original work,
made no broad generalization (what is known as the Ptolemaic system
was in reality the system of Hipparchus), but more than any other of
the ancients he is the type of the true scientist in these
respects--the accuracy of his observations, the thoroughness of his
work at every point, and the really great additions that he made to
science in the way of verifying, correcting, and extending the theory
he received. He lived in the early part of the second century A. D.
And the next name to attract our notice is that of Copernicus, more
than twelve hundred years later. What is the meaning of that lapse of
time? After such noble foundations had been laid, was there no great
scientific work built thereon in all those centuries? Absolutely none.
It will be well for us to think for a moment of what were the reasons
for that barrenness, for the same causes are more or less at work at
all times to hinder the growth of science and the extension of
scientific method.
1. And what strikes us most forcibly at the outset is a lack of the
sense of the importance of physical science. Through most of that
period Christianity dominated the best thought of Europe, and the
tremendous practical problems that confronted the Church for a long
time threw everything else into the shade; for a long time, I said,
during the early part of this period in especial, when the Church in
general seemed to realize its responsibility to win the whole world to
its Master, and every individual coming into the Church was made to
feel that the Church's work was above everything else in the world.
The importance of an exhaustive knowledge of the facts of Nature
seemed trifling when compared with questions of character and future
life, and making the world feel the power of Christ. Eusebius only
expressed the thought of much of his age when he said, speaking of
those who pursued the study of physical science, "It is not through
ignorance of the things admired by them, but through contempt of their
useless labor, that we think little of these matters, turning our
souls to the exercise of better things." And with that deliberate
turning away from such subjects there would come of necessity that
indistinctness of ideas about natural things which is fatal to all
scientific investigation. Witness these words of Lactantius: "To
search for the causes of natural things; to inquire whether the sun be
as large as he seems; whether the moon is convex or concave; whether
the stars are fixed in the sky or float freely in the air; of what
size and of what material are the heavens, whether they be at rest or
in motion; what is the magnitude of the earth, on what foundations it
is suspended and balanced--to dispute and conjecture on such matters
is just as if we chose to discuss what we think of a city in a remote
country, of which we never heard but the name." As Whewell, from whom
these last two quotations are taken, says, "It is impossible to
express more forcibly that absence of any definite notions on physical
subjects which led to this tone of thought."
2. Contributing, without doubt, largely to that indistinctness of
ideas, and to the low value put upon physical science, was the
mysticism common to the early and the mediæval Church, and to the
world at large for many hundred years--the mysticism, that is to say,
the habit of assigning supernatural agencies to the various phenomena
of Nature, and of regarding them as subject to the vicissitudes of
arbitrary will rather than as following out the workings of a
consistent orderly plan. There is no need of any attempt to show how
fatal such a spirit is to science, nor how that spirit seemed for a
long while to dominate the world. "It changed physical science to
magic; astronomy to astrology; the study of the composition of bodies
to alchemy; and even mathematics was changed till it became the
contemplation of the spiritual relations of number and figure." That
the Church was not, as has been often charged, responsible for this
spiritualizing temper of the age is apparent to any one familiar with
the development of Greek philosophy and with the history of the
superstitions of the Roman Empire. Nevertheless, it is also true that
that temper has been increased in the past and is fostered to-day by
the undue emphasis which the Church has placed upon the miraculous
character of early Christianity.
3. We notice in the history of the thought of this period, both in the
Church and in the world at large, a disposition rather to examine,
criticise, and comment upon the work of others, than to do
investigating and thinking of one's own. That such a spirit should be
found in the Church is not to be wondered at, for the authority of
Christ and his apostles would seem to leave no room for originality of
thinking on religious subjects, and the sacred Scriptures would give
abundant scope for the exercise of the highest learning and of
intellectual penetration in interpreting. But the same tendency is
noticed outside of the Church, as the great schools of interpreters of
Aristotle and of Plato, and the large volumes of abstracts and
compilations from preceding writers, bear witness. But when vast
learning and ability are expended, rather on such labors than on
investigation into the secrets of Nature, science does not thrive.
4. And once again we observe the gradually increasing dogmatic
tendency of the Church, the claim to be the repository of all
knowledge, the stifling of thought, and of investigation into what
might lead men away from the truth and the "faith once delivered to
the saints."
It seemed best to give in detail these four evident reasons for the
barrenness of science during those centuries, because, as I said, the
same things to-day, though with decreasing force, interfere with the
progress of science and the extension of scientific method. I shall
refer to them again a little further on.
The great revival of four centuries ago in art, in learning, in
religion, reached also to science. At last the spell of ignorance, of
unreasoning prejudice, of offensive dogmatism, and of vague mysticism,
that had held the world for so long, was broken. The new life of
science was feeble at first, and remained long in its swaddling
clothes. It was about the middle of the sixteenth century that
Copernicus gave his great work to the world; then no great work again
for nearly one hundred years, when Kepler, Galileo, and Stevinus
arise. But the century has not been an idle one. Everywhere men have
been awakening to the new light, have begun to think freely and
fearlessly; are no longer deterred by the cry of magic or the
prohibition of church dignitaries from investigating into Nature for
themselves. And so, when in the seventeenth century those mighty ones
appeared, thoughtful people in great numbers were found to welcome
the new truths; and at almost the same time Descartes by his essay on
Scientific Method, and Bacon by the Novum Organum, were able to give
an impetus to scientific investigation such as the world had never
felt before.
The history of the progress of science from that time to this is too
complex to receive any treatment in a paper of this character. How it
has been throughout a record of successive triumphs; how gradually one
department after another of Nature's workings has been mastered and
reduced to orderly system; how all systems have been themselves
reduced to one, harmonious and complete, in the magnificent
generalization of evolution; how all the time not only has the sum of
knowledge been steadily augmented, but the power of acquiring
knowledge marvelously enlarged--all of that we know. That which has
accomplished such results is science, and the process employed has
been scientific method. We are in a position now to have a fairly
intelligent idea of it. Look at it and see.
"Scientific method" is not, of course, a technical expression, as are
induction, deduction, etc. Yet it means something very definite. It is
that method of dealing with phenomena which reason declares and
experience has shown to insure the greatest accuracy in results. There
are in the complete process four necessary steps: 1. Observation of
facts. 2. Comparison and classification, or generalization. 3.
Deduction. 4. Verification.
We can see these steps alike in the simplest scientific attempt of our
remote ancestors, and in the work of a Newton or a Darwin.
To use an illustration of the former suggested by the book of
Leviticus. In very early times it was noticed that animals that had
both the characteristics of being cloven-hoofed and of chewing the cud
were good for food. A new animal is discovered having those
characteristics. It is argued from the general principle laid down
that this new animal is good for food, and the matter is verified by
experiment. There are the four distinct steps: observation of the
facts, drawing a principle from the comparison of the facts, deducing
as to the particular case, verifying. The result is, of course, not
only a classifying of the particular case, but also the extension of
the principle. So with the generalization of the law of gravitation.
Numberless facts were observed with the greatest care; from them the
principle was generalized; from that again deductions were made as to
particular cases; and the results were verified. But though the steps
of the process are the same in both instances, yet what a vast
difference between them! Take the first step, the observation of
facts. All that the thought of the earlier age could do was to note a
few striking resemblances and differences among the animals that
roamed the neighboring forests. What could be done in the later age,
ay, what the scientific temper of the age demanded, was the most
rigidly careful examination of multitudes of facts; examination by a
trained mind and with all the improved appliances which science and
art had given to the world, and then submitted to the searching
scrutiny of other trained minds, with like appliances. Or take the
last step, verification. In one case it meant finding the effect upon
the taste and upon the health. In the other, what it meant may be
judged from the account we have of one of Newton's investigations. In
applying his hypothesis of gravitation (it was only a hypothesis then)
to the motion of the moon, there was a very slight divergence, about
two feet a minute, between the time of the revolution of the moon in
its orbit, as he calculated it and as he observed it. He was not
satisfied until, _eighteen years after_, on account of an improvement
made in the method of taking observations, he was able to obtain what
he regarded as a verification.
And so what we learn from the history of science is the gradual
_development_ of scientific method. Scientific method in the work of
Hipparchus meant a very different thing from the scientific method of
the Chaldeans. Very different still is the scientific method of
studying the heavens to-day. So to an even greater degree is there a
difference between the scientific method of studying the earth to-day
and as our fathers studied it. It is not merely the multitude of facts
that we have learned, nor the marvelous instruments that we have made
to aid us in our observations; it is also, and by no means least,
this--that men all these centuries have been _learning_ to observe, to
reason, and to verify.
We may say that science and scientific method have grown and developed
together: the development of one has invariably advanced the
development of the other, and, on the other hand, where one has
remained stationary, or has retrograded, so has the other.
History has enabled us to see this other fact also: that the
conditions which interfered with the growth of science in the past not
only interfere with it always, wherever they exist, but to very much
the same degree interfere with the free application of scientific
method. What those conditions were during one long period of history
we saw--a failure to realize its importance as compared with questions
of conduct; a tendency to comment rather than investigate; a tendency
to ascribe everything to spiritual agency rather than to natural
causes; and lastly, dogmatism. We very well know how, as a matter of
fact, those very conditions do interfere with the application of
scientific method to-day.
How far is scientific method applicable to the investigation of the
Bible? Is there any department of human knowledge to which scientific
method of investigation is not applicable? If scientific method is
what we defined it to be, that method of dealing with phenomena which
reason declares and experience has shown to insure the greatest
accuracy in results, then there is obviously no department of
knowledge to which that method is not applicable, for it means simply
the method which will bring us nearest to the truth. When we are
dealing with the highest spiritual verities we use that method which
will bring us nearest to the truth; we are bound to use it in the
interest of truth! That does not mean that we are to look for material
causes for spiritual phenomena; nor does it mean that those things
which in their nature appeal to the sensibilities, or have to do with
conduct, or require an exercise of faith, must, in order for us to
find out the truth, be removed from the domain of sensibility,
conduct, faith. That would be a most unscientific method of
investigation. The very first canon of scientific method is that it be
appropriate to the matter in hand. And so in investigating the truths
which are distinctly taught in the Bible--truths which are of the
nature of a revelation of God's will and which are designed to reach
and affect the whole nature of man--to take no account of other
faculties in a man besides his power of apprehending intellectually,
and of reasoning logically, would be unscientific beyond hope of
pardon.
But what I wish especially to consider is a different kind of
investigation of the Bible--one not concerned with the truths taught
in the Bible, but with the Bible itself, as a collection of writings
that has come down to us from the past. What is the nature of these
writings? Who are their authors? Are there any of them which have more
than one author? Are there any which are compilations from several
different sources? What is the age in which these works were written
or compiled? All of those, and similar questions, are not only the
appropriate but the necessary inquiries of a truth-loving mind. They
will continue to be asked until they are satisfactorily answered. With
reference to other writings, the persistence of such inquiries will
depend, except in cases of pure curiosity, upon the importance of such
writings to the world. On that principle there will be no cessation of
inquiries concerning the Bible until they are, as I said,
satisfactorily answered, for no other writings are to be compared, in
their importance to the world, with the writings of the Bible. How can
such answers be given? Where does competency to give answer lie? Does
it lie in the authority of the Church? Not to lay any stress upon the
fact, one way or the other, that the Church, except in certain
localities, has never declared on the canon of the Bible, much less
on the questions proposed above, there is no such authority residing
in the Church, unless we grant the claim sometimes made for her, to
infallibility. With those making such a claim we must, within the
limits of this paper, decline to argue.
But if not the Church, what other authority can give us the answers we
seek? The authority of primitive tradition, or of the opinions of
great commentators, or of the great mass of Christian people of modern
times? Authority which is so shadowy in other things that might be
mentioned would surely count for nothing in a matter as grave as this.
Or can particular expressions of the Bible itself be taken to settle
the matter once for all? But as to most of those very questions the
Bible itself is silent; and if it had spoken, yet the question of
competent authority would only be put one step further back. Or, once
again, can the answer come from "the spirit which is in man," guided
by God's Spirit? But in this, as in the instance mentioned above, that
which has been shown to be incompetent in so many other things can not
be called competent in this.
There is, there can be, according to the requirement of our minds,
only one answer which will satisfy; it is that which is determined by
purely scientific method--that is to say, according to the nature of
the subject, that method of investigating literary works which reason
declares and experience has shown to insure the greatest accuracy in
results. That method is known by the name of the "Higher Criticism."
What is the history of the higher criticism? One would imagine, from
the language often used by the opponents of its application to the
Bible, that it was an arbitrary method of criticism, invented in these
rationalizing times expressly for the purpose of doing away with the
divine character of the Bible. But higher criticism has been in use in
examining the classics and other (nonscriptural) writings of former
ages for fully two hundred years. The first one to state its
fundamental principles was Du Pin, in his New History of
Ecclesiastical Writers, published in 1694. In 1699 Bentley published
his famous examination of the epistles of Phalaris, according to the
methods and principles of the higher criticism. There is no better
instance of scientific investigation as to authenticity. These
epistles had been commonly accepted by scholars as the work of
Phalaris, and accounted of great value. Bentley, by his searching
examination of them, proved them to be the forgery of a sophist, so
conclusively that no scholar worthy of the name has ventured to
question the result since. That, I say, was in 1699.
The first work in the way of higher criticism of the Bible, Eichhorn's
Introduction to the Old Testament, was not published till nearly one
hundred years later.
But that very modernness of the work brings it with some into
disfavor. "If that is the true way of investigating the biblical
writings," they say, "why are we so long in finding it out? Why did
not the fathers of the Church--mighty, indeed, as many of them were,
with keenness of insight into the Bible, with profound knowledge of
its characteristics, with substantially the same evidence before them
as we have now--why did not they give us the principles of the higher
criticism, if those principles are true?"
For the very same reason as science in general has not until very
lately begun to do its true work. How meager is all the scientific
work done in the ages of the past in comparison with that done during
the last three hundred years! Men were not up to it; they were only
learning the scientific method. So, the scientific method of examining
literature, men have not learned till within the past two hundred
years. Having all the facts before them which we have now would avail
nothing without the knowledge of _how_ to observe, to classify, to
deduce, to verify, any more in the field of letters than in the field
of Nature; any more in the Bible than in other literary works. Among
the immense benefits which science has conferred upon the world,
surely this should not be accounted the least, that it has taught us a
method by which we may find out with ever-growing certainty the truth
concerning the Bible itself.
What, then, should be the attitude of lovers of truth toward the
higher criticism of the Bible? It can be only one--openness of mind to
the ready acceptance of its work. Not that all its present results are
to be accepted as final, for its work is still confessedly incomplete.
Moreover, we can not fail to see that all investigations into the
sacred Scriptures have not been prompted by a genuine love of truth,
nor carried on with that judicial mind that should characterize every
one working in the name of science. So that not all that has been done
in the name of the higher criticism has been according to scientific
method. Nevertheless, there are results already obtained, bearing the
stamp of truth--such as the composite character of the Hexateuch; the
double authorship of Isaiah; the post-exilic date of many of the
Psalms--results which to a scientific mind have the practical
certainty of a demonstration, but which the great majority of
Christian ministers, who are supposed to look at such things
intelligently, are not ready to accept.
Are not the ministry in general more zealous to do as St. Paul says,
"Hold fast that which is good," than either to do, as he also says,
"Prove all things," or to make sure that what they hold fast is the
best? Well, undoubtedly that is the better way to do, if they are to
do only one--to "hold fast that which is good." And yet it is a
blessed thought that every brave, fearless effort which men make
toward finding out the truth, with every help that they can get from
reason and a knowledge of the past, is an effort after God.
GEOLOGY OF THE KLONDIKE GOLD FIELDS.[1]
[Footnote 1: From Alaska and the Klondike. With thirty-five
full-page illustrations and three maps. By Prof. Angelo Heilprin.
New York: D. Appleton and Company. Pp. 326. Price, $1.75.]
BY ANGELO HEILPRIN,
LATE PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY AT THE ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES OF
PHILADELPHIA, FELLOW OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.
The gold fields of the Klondike or Troandik district, as officially
designated, lie along or immediately about the waters, whether direct
or tributary, of the Klondike, an eastern affluent of the Yukon, which
discharges into the "father of northern waters" at the site of Dawson.
The Klondike itself, whose upper waters are as yet only imperfectly
known, seemingly carries but little gold, the main quantity of the
precious metal and that which has made the region famous being
contributed by one of its southern arms, the Bonanza, and by a
tributary of this, the Eldorado. Hunker Creek, draining a mountainous
district several miles to the eastward of the Bonanza, and like it a
southern affluent of the Klondike, finds promise of a wealth but
little if at all inferior to that of the Bonanza. In a broader or more
popular sense, the Klondike region not only embraces the special
district so designated in the books of the Gold Commissioner, but also
the entire tract which heads up to the sources of the streams that
have before been mentioned, and thereby, with Quartz, Sulphur, and
Dominion Creeks as tributaries of Indian River, takes in the greater
portion of the Indian River mining district, and with Baker, Reindeer,
and other creeks on the west, the official districts indicated by
these names as well. With this limitation the region roughly defines
an area about forty miles square, whose northern boundary lies
somewhat to the north of the sixty-fourth parallel of latitude, and on
the west reaches to within about thirty-five miles of the
international boundary, the one hundred and forty-first meridian of
west longitude.
This area of approximately fifteen hundred square miles, which but
little exceeds that of Rhode Island or of the county of Cornwall in
England, may be broadly characterized as being gently mountainous,
with elevations of five hundred to fifteen hundred feet, and in the
highest parts of about twenty-two hundred feet. Its lowest depression
is the valley of the Yukon, which, in itself occupying a position
about fourteen hundred feet above the sea, gives to these points
absolute elevations of three and nearly four thousand feet. Dome
Mountain, or, as it is frequently designated, simply "The Dome," and
less often "Solomon's Dome," "King Dome," and "Mount Ophir," appears
to be the culminating point of the entire region; and its prominent
position at the water parting of Bonanza, Hunker, Sulphur, and
Dominion Creeks makes it a noble figure in the landscape, and the most
interesting single feature to the prospector and miner. No absolute
determinations for altitude have as yet been made for it, but when
crossing the summit it seemed to me that it could not be much under
four thousand feet, and I believe that Mr. Ogilvie gives to it about
thirty-five hundred feet. The landscape which this mountain dominates
is surpassingly beautiful, and I know of no finer view from similarly
low mountains than that which this one commands. The sharply incised
wooded valleys of the different streams that head up to it tear the
mountain into projecting buttresses, and in the ridge that leads off
from it southwestward contracts it to the extent of forming for half a
mile or more a narrow backbone or saddle. In this respect it reminded
me much of Mount Katahdin, in Maine. On a clear day the distant main
mass of the snow-capped Rocky Mountains is sharply outlined against
the northeastern sky, a most impressive setting to the verdant slopes
that trend off toward it, only to disappear in the belt of plain that
separates the two mountain systems. I was unfortunate in not getting
the full benefit of this view, as at the time of my first crossing the
atmosphere was very cloudy, and on the second it was so surcharged
with smoke from forest fires in the valleys of Gold Bottom, Quartz,
and Sulphur Creeks that hardly more than the foreground was visible.
[Illustration: A BIT OF NORWAY IN ALASKA.--CASCADE NEAR SKAGUAY.]
A succession of five or six knobs runs out from the ridge to which
reference has been made and which trends off in the direction of the
head waters of Eldorado, and these, together with the main Dome, are
sometimes spoken of as the "Seven Domes," but they have no particular
significance in the orographic detail and can not even be said to be
clearly defined to the eye. Dome Mountain is held in a respect
bordering almost on veneration by the Klondikers, inasmuch as it is
generally thought to be the mainspring of the gold supply which is
contained in the streams that fall off from it, and this means nearly
all the good and the promising streams of the entire region. And, in
truth, there is for the moment no way of absolutely disposing of the
miner's suppositions, nor can the circumstance that little or no gold
has yet been found in place either on or in the mountain be given much
value in the discussion of the probable origin of the gold, inasmuch
as the same negative condition confronts us in a study of the rocks of
all other parts of the same and adjoining regions. Assuming that
alluvial gold is in the main a derivative from reef gold, it is
certainly strange that streams flowing in well-nigh opposite
directions, and yet rising within very short distances of one
another, should be so largely charged with gold, unless they have
obtained it from a common source; nor can the fact, as received and
reported by most miners, but of the full import of which I have not
yet fully made up my mind, that the different streams carry different
classes of gold, be argued away as having no significance in this
connection. Claim holders profess at most times to be able to
distinguish between Eldorado gold and that of Bonanza, between the
gold of Bonanza and that of Hunker or Dominion, and so on; and there
is no question that marked differences in color and in the contours of
the coarse flakes and nuggets do present themselves, and even in
narrower limits than has here been outlined. Thus, the gold from
French Hill, abreast of Claim 17 on Eldorado, has a distinctiveness
that is largely its own, and hardly follows the gold of the rest of
the Eldorado tract; and the same is true of the gold of Skookum Hill
in its relations to that of Bonanza, and also of that of Victoria
Gulch. Moreover, the recent assays that have been made by the Bank of
British North America and the Canadian Bank of Commerce, in Dawson, of
the gold of the different creeks and gulches show plainly that marked
differences as to fineness are distinctive qualities--at least they
appear to be such at the present time. Thus, while Eldorado and
Bonanza gold generally assays but about $15.50 or $15.80 to the ounce,
Dominion gold shows as high as $17.80, and Hunker close to $18.50; the
gold of Bear Creek, a minor tributary of the Klondike, is reported to
actually give $19.20 to the ounce, falling only behind the almost pure
specimens that have been reported from American Creek and Mynook, and
to which a valuation of nearly $20 has been given. If these assumed
facts continue to be proved true, then they must argue in favor of a
distribution of gold from largely localized spots or areas, a
conclusion that is also pointed to by a number of other circumstances.
On the other hand, there are some facts which point in quite the
opposite direction, and some of these will be referred to later on.
[Illustration: THE VALE OF ELDORADO.]
None of the mountains of the region even approximates the snow line,
which would here probably occupy a position not much below six
thousand feet, and on the northern face perhaps even rise to seven
thousand feet. Not a vestige of snow was seen by me when crossing the
Dome, not even in the most sheltered hollows, a condition that at
first strikes one as strange, considering that in so many parts of our
own mountains of equal or less elevation snow may be found lingering
through a long period of the summer months. But here the greatly
protracted hours of summer daylight and heat, together with the
correspondingly diminished period of night, when a regelation might
take place or melting at least could be arrested, have a marked
influence in dissipating the winter's snows and ice when these are not
particularly heavy. I did not find the August heat quite so intense on
the mountain tops as I had been led to suppose that it would be, but
there was quite enough of it to satisfy an ample vegetation and to
make heavy garments in walking more than a luxury. Unfortunately, my
thermometer was away from me at this time, and as sensation in this
dry northern climate is so difficult to gauge by the standard of the
mercurial index, I shall not hazard a guess as to the actual reading.
Taking the mountains in their entirety, it is difficult from single
points of view to determine for them any definite relation. There are
so many valleys in close proximity to one another, some very ancient
and others relatively modern, and with trends so opposed in all
directions, that in the absence of a dominant ridge or mass this
relation becomes very confused; and I was not in a position, with the
limited time at my command and the deficiency of rock outcrops, to
positively define any main line or axis of uplifts. Yet I suspect that
there is one such, with a generally east and west bearing, whose trend
might correspond with that of the ridge already referred to, which,
with a southwesterly deflection, unites Dome Mountain with the mass
that separates the upper Eldorado from Chief Gulch. What strikes one
as particularly interesting in the conformation of some of these
mountains when seen from an elevation is their hummocky appearance.
This is particularly noticeable in the mountains which close in the
Eldorado and Bonanza Valleys. With considerable actual elevations,
they convey the impression of being merely swells or undulations of an
open surface, very much like magnified morainic knolls in a glaciated
country. This depressed type of mountain structure, with the evidence
of its expanded valleys and gently flowing contours, carries with it
the proof of long-continued degradation, and of a history whose pages
read far back into geological chronology.
With the evidences of antiquity before us, there are yet indications,
amounting, it seems to me, almost to proof, that many of the more
pronounced features of the region date their origin from only a
comparatively recent period. Such is the case with a number of valleys
that are tributary to the main ones, and even the latter appear to
have been modified by late stream displacements. Taking the Eldorado
or Bonanza, with their open U-shaped troughs and in most parts gently
sloping banks, as types of the older valleys, it is surprising to note
how many of their tributaries have the deeply incised and narrow
contours; and I am led almost to conclude that some of these are
really of very late construction. The stream displacements, which, by
reason of the indices they give to the finding of new placers, are now
beginning to be so attentively studied by the miner and prospector,
are emphatic in their testimony in this direction.[2] One has but to
note the triangular area that is included between French Gulch
(tributary to Eldorado abreast of Claims 17 and 18) and Adams Creek
(tributary to Bonanza at Claim 6 below Discovery) to be convinced of
the actuality of recent transformations. Most of the miners regard the
high-level gravels of this tract--of French Hill, Gold Hill (opposite
to Grand Forks Village), Skookum Hill, and Adams Hill--so rich in gold
as to make the claims fairly the rivals of the creek claims, as
representing the ancient high-level flow of the Eldorado and Bonanza,
but I am convinced that this is not the case (although it is certain
that both streams mentioned did at one time flow at as high, and even
considerably higher, levels). The materials that so largely
distinguish these bench or hillside gravels (placers) are in greater
part rounded bowlders or cobbles of white quartz, with a marked
deficiency of the fragmented schists and slates which make pay dirt
and bed rock in the course of the streams below.
[Footnote 2: Prof. Israel Russell has made the interesting
observation that orographic movement may now be taking place in
the region of the middle Yukon, about the Lower Ramparts, with the
uplifting of a mountain range athwart the river; on this
supposition he seeks an explanation for the detail of the Yukon
lowlands.]
_Per contra_, the creek claims of Eldorado and Bonanza contain, as a
rule, only an insignificant quantity of the rounded quartz bowlders,
while almost everywhere where excavations have been made the body and
substance of the output are the flattened and discoid parts of the
mother-rock of most of the region--quartzitic, micaceous, hornblendic,
and chloritic schists, and with them a less quantity of gneissic and
dioritic rock. The high quartz-capped knob to which reference has
already been made as marking the water parting of French, Nine Mile,
and Adams Creeks, has large quartz masses entering into its
composition, whether as bosses, dikes, or veins, and to them, or
rather their wasted parts, must we look for the source which has so
generously supplied the materials of the French-Adams Hills benches.
There has been a bad break-up in this quarter, and the materials
resulting from it have been swept into the confluence (delta) of the
two streams which define the main valleys. Furthermore, the descending
arcuate contour lines which are so well marked by terrace slopes on
that face of French Hill which is turned to the corner of Eldorado and
French Gulch, show plainly the receding course, in the direction of
south, of French Creek (Gulch). On the hill slopes south of the
position which it now occupies there is none of that deposit which
lies to the north of it; the riches of French Hill are delimited by
French Gulch, and even in the gulch itself there is nothing that can
be compared with what is found on the heights. Again, on the side of
Eldorado opposite to French and Gold Hills there is the same
deficiency as regards the characteristic bench deposits, and this also
holds true with the Bonanza opposite Skookum and Adams Hills. If these
high-level deposits were in fact the ancient waste of the Eldorado and
Bonanza, we should naturally expect to find at least "outliers" on
the less favored bank of the streams, and surely in the case of the
Eldorado former evidence of this deposition ought to be had on the
hillsides, similarly contoured to those of the north, which lie south
of and immediately adjoining French Gulch.
[Illustration: GRAND FORKS VILLAGE.--VALLEY OF THE BONANZA.]
Through virtually the entire Klondike tract and far beyond it on all
sides there are evidences of high water flows. No more perfect
presentation of high-level terraces can be had than that which defines
the first line of heights, of perhaps one hundred and fifty to two
hundred feet, which so beautifully impress the landscape of the Yukon
about Dawson. The observer, from a still loftier elevation, notes
these flat-topped banks, having the regularity of railroad
constructions, following the course of the river as far as the eye can
reach, here perhaps interrupted by a too steeply washed buttress,
elsewhere washed to low level by some stream which has taken a
transverse direction. A somewhat higher line of benches curves around
the still higher points of eminence, and defines the course of water
across country--such, at least, it is to-day. And all the way to the
top, scattered evidences of the recent presence of water can still be
found. I met with rolled or water-worn pebbles so near to the top (the
actual summit and not the position of the signal flag) of the high
peak overlooking Dawson that it may safely be assumed that they also
occur on the very apex (about eleven hundred feet above the present
level of the Yukon), a conclusion which is more than strengthened by
the finding of pebbles at even a greater elevation on the French-Adams
Creek knob. While thus presenting the evidence of high water levels, I
am far from convinced that this evidence points exclusively to river
flows. Much more does it appear that, in one part of its history at
least, we are dealing with the evidences of the past existence of
large lakelike bodies of water, perhaps even of a vast inland sea. The
contours of the country in a sort of ill-defined way suggest this
interpretation--an interpretation that is not, however, without
evidence to support it, and which seems also to have been entertained
before me by McConnell and by Israel Russell. The latter investigator
has, indeed, given the name of Lake Yukon to a former extensive body
of water, of which the existing Lakes Lebarge, Marsh, Tagish, and
Bennett, with the connecting Yukon, are only dissociated parts. This
lake is assumed to have been about one hundred and fifty miles in
length, with a surface elevated between twenty-five hundred and
twenty-seven hundred feet above the sea.