The streams of Alaska itself, so far as they
have yet been worked, are far less promising, and yet Alaska
has a golden treasure house of its own that may yet prove as
prolific as the Klondike itself.
This is at Nome, on the shores of Bering Sea, about
twenty-five degrees of longitude nearly due west from
Dawson, and a hundred and fifty miles north of the mouth of
the Yukon. Here the sands of the sea itself and of its
bordering shores have proven splendid gold bearers and have
attracted a large population to that inhospitable region, in
latitude sixty-five degrees north; here has grown up a city
containing 25,000 inhabitants, and here may be seen the most
northerly railroad in the world.
In 1898 a soldier, in digging a well on the beach at Nome,
saw in the sands thrown up that alluring yellow glint which
has led so many men to fortune and so many to death. The
story of his find came to the ears of an old prospector from
Idaho, who, too ill to go inland, was stranded in the
military station of Nome. Spade and pan were at once put to
work and in twenty days the fortunate invalid found himself
worth $3000 in gold.
At Nome the gold was first found in the beach sands and even
in the sands of the sea adjoining the beach, old Neptune
being forced to yield part of the treasures he had taken to
himself.
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