Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, December 1899: Vol. LVI, November, 1899 to April, 1900Various
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, December 1899: Vol. LVI, November, 1899 to April, 1900
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
Readers of the Popular Science Monthly have already had an opportunity
of perusing some of the narrative and observations which Professor
_Heilprin_ has embodied in his _Alaska and the Klondike_.[29] In it he
has attempted to portray that remarkable region in its true aspects.
Professor Heilprin is well able to do so, for he is a keen observer
and looks with a scientific eye, and his literary style is free and
graphic. He made a summer journey to the region last year (1898),
between the end of July and the middle of October, with the object of
being "able to determine between fact and fancy, and to obtain a
personal knowledge of the region and its varied conditions." What he
saw and heard is here presented. While by no means pretending to that
degree of accuracy and of proper insight which can only come with more
protracted and intimate knowledge, the author believes that he has
given a careful and unprejudiced account. Persons whose ideas of the
regions about Dawson are associated with visions of arctic severity
and sterility may be a little surprised at reading of one's looking
from the heights about the town northwestward "over a most lovely
stretch of river, with hillsides closely besetting it, and with a
vegetation of most striking brilliancy and vigor," and of the eye
turned southward, losing, in consequence of the different
configuration of the ground, "all but the beautiful verdant slopes
which still mark out the valley"; of the beholder being able for hours
at a time to sit watching the beauty of the landscape; and of the
difficulty of recommending to one endowed with a proper appreciation
for the works of quiet Nature "a more enjoyable exercise than to take
in a bit of this wonderful land of the North, and with it a mellow
sunshine that is not to be found elsewhere." These pretty landscape
pictures of the arctic summer are followed by accounts of society at
the Klondike as the author found it, of the trail, steamboat travel,
and the routes to the region; a description of the placers, their
occurrence, and the methods of mining; observations on the physical
history and geology of the gold fields; and a summary of the laws
regulating mining. In the summary of his geological discussion the
author expresses the opinion that it seems probable that "the Klondike
gold region is merely a fractional part of a discontinuously
continuous auriferous tract that extends in a westerly course into the
heart of Alaska, and southward into British Columbia."
[Footnote 29: Alaska and the Klondike. A Journey to the New
Eldorado. With Hints to the Traveler and Observations on the
Physical History and Geology of the Gold Regions, the Conditions
and Methods of working the Klondike Placers, and the Laws
governing and regulating Mining in the Northwest Territory of
Canada. By Angelo Heilprin. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Pp.
315. Price, $1.75.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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