a million dollars in gold dust, ranging in size from a hazel nut to fine bird shot and kernels of sand. All of them were penniless, or nearly so, when they left the United States, some of them having taken their departure within a year, others having been prospecting on the fields. along the branches of the Upper Yukon for several years. They brought back fortunes ranging from $5000 to $90,000 and the most extraordinary tales of their experience in the mining countries. Their descriptions of the vast amounts of gold still remaining in the regions from which they had come were so tempered with cautions and warnings against a mad rush for the new fields that tales which otherwise might have been deemed improbable gained credence through their very conservatism. But whatever might be thought of the tales, there was no disputing the tangible fact of the yellow metal which was laid down in Selby's smelting works at San Francisco, and when a second ship, the Portland, from St. Michael, arrived at Seattle, three days later, with more miners aboard and $700,000 in bullion, it was as if a spark had set afire the enthusiasm for hunting gold which had been lying dormant since the days of the Argonauts of 1849. There

have been few scenes in mining history more striking than that which was enacted when the men landed from the Excelsior, weather beaten, roughly dressed, with scraggly beards and furrowed cheeks, and marching straight to the smelting works, proceeded to produce bags of gold, dirty and worn, containing thousands of dollars in the precious metal.

As fast as the bags were weighed they were ripped open with a knife and the contents were allowed to scatter over the counter; and then some of the miners produced from bundles and coat pockets gold dust in all sorts of queer receptacles, such as fruit jars and jelly tumblers, and even writing paper, carefully secured with twine. No wonder the spectotors looked on with fascinated amazement. No wonder the strange news spread like wildfire. The gold fever of 1897 had begun to burn.

These miners brought the news that the new Eldorado was situated on the Klondike River, nearly two thousand miles from the mouth of the Yukon, just escaping the Arctic circle by a bare 250 miles, and situated in Canadian territory, a meagre 140 miles east of the 141st degree of longitude, which constitutes the boundary between Alaska and British America.

They told, too, of the terrible hardship through which they had gone in order to reach these marvelous gold fields and uncover their hidden wealth. Joseph Ladue, who left Plattsburg, N. Y., a few years ago, an impecunious farm hand, too poor to marry the woman of his choice, described how he had forced his way. into the new diggings, established the city of Dawson, which is the metropolis of the gold region, and come back with thousands of dollars in hand and millions in prospect. But his most emphatic words were words of warning against those who would rush madly to the new field without considering the hardships they would have to undergo. Starvation and want, he said, would be the lot of those who ventured into the new Eldorado without a supply of provisions sufficient to last for months, and he said that those who ventured to leave for the North as late as August I were wasting their time, besides subjecting themselves to needless peril, for by the time they had traversed the long stretch of inhospitable country they would find winter setting in with Arctic vigor and they would be shut up in an ice-bound region hundreds of miles from telegraph or postoffice, a prey to starvation and cold.