The ultimate yield of the "gold of Ophir" Creek will be enormous and astonishing, justifying its right to a name famous from ancient times. But, as is generally true of northwestern Alaska, the claims in order to pay well must be (and they will be) owned and worked by large companies, able to incur a considerable preliminary expense to mine them properly and on a large scale. Now and then the individual will find a rich spot from which he and his partners may realize a few thousand dollars; but the palmy days of the Nome beach and the Topkok diggings are seemingly over, and, as most of the miners say, it is not a "poor man's country." And yet, as regards its wealth, hardly the surface has been scratched. Dredging companies have been formed to operate the gravel bars and the gold deposits in the beds of the streams; and there is excellent reason for believing that fortunes will be made in this way. An excellent indication of the stability and extent of the Council City District is the fact that the common currency is gold-dust. Every store and office has its gold-scales, and one must, for his own protection, be skilled in manipulating the delicate balances. Although an ounce of "clean" gold will average at the assayer's from eighteen to nineteen dollars, sixteen dollars is, in Alaska, the accepted current value. With this, therefore, as a standard,--a pennyweight being eighty cents and a grain three and a third cents,--with accurate scales and proper weights, exchange is not a difficult matter.
Alaska has furnished a fertile field for unscrupulous schemers to enrich themselves at the expense of credulous investors. Hundreds of claims, which either did not exist or were not worth the paper upon which they were presented, have been sold to the gullible public, and corporations have been formed to make their stockholders quickly millionaires. Such a proposed donor of wealth was "The Polar Bear Mining Company," whose prospectus I had read and whose operations near Council were within my ken. This bonanza concern had a capital stock of one million shares, offered for sale at four cents a share, and its assets consisted of forty-seven wildcat claims upon which the prospectus dwelt at length in golden praise, declaring that "pay streaks" and "old channels" pervaded the entire bunch. "Alaska has made many millionaires--why not be one?" was the tenor of this masterpiece of seductive argument. After the season was well under way, the Polar Bear began to tear open the ground not far from Council; and soon afterward a party of some six or seven discouraged, disgusted, and disgruntled men trudged laboriously over the tundra, and camped near us, until they should learn from headquarters at Nome which other one of the forty-seven claims should similarly be drained of its treasure. But no word came, and there they remained abjectly despondent as the dreary days dragged by. One evening my partner and I strolled over to where they were gathered in dismal silence about a small fire, engaged in brushing away the mosquitos, and looking generally miserable. They appeared to be farmers masquerading as miners. There had been defection in the camp, due to a controversy as to who was the "captain," and in consequence the circle was depleted. Speaking of this lamentable fact, one of them, who resembled a shoemaker out of employment, said apologetically (but he was proud of it): "Now, I don't want to seem to be stuck up or conceited, but _I'm_ the boss here--I'm the _secretary_ of the company." "How much did it cost you?" we queried. "Well," he said, "I didn't pay anything to be secretary, but I put twenty-one hundred dollars in the company." At this of course we roared, and soon had the outfit, despite their misery, laughing themselves while we recited choice bits from the glowing prospectus. Before departing, the "secretary" earnestly besought us not to tell anybody about his investment, and resignedly admitted that the laugh was on him.