THE STORIES OF SOME MINERS.

The stories of the returned miners, telegraphed from San Francisco all over the country and to the ends of the earth on the evening of the 14th of July, were what started the gold fever, and the craze to go in search of the precious metal that is now raging from one end of the country to the other. Soon after the arrival of the Excelsior, the half million dollars worth of yellow dust, which ranged in size from a hazelnut to fine bird-shot and kernels of sand, was poured out on the counter at Selby's smelting works on Montgomery street and then shovelled with copper scoops into the great melting pot. Those who saw the gold in one heap said no such spectacle had been seen since the days of '49, when miners used to come down from the placer districts and change their gold for $20 pieces.

The luckiest of these miners are Mr. and Mrs. T. S. Lippey, who left here in April, 1896. They brought back $60,000. They went in by way of Juneau over the divide, and Mrs. Lippey was the first woman to go over this trail. She is a small, wiry woman, with skin tanned to the color of sole leather. She seemed none the worse for the hardships of Yukon life. She is a good rifle shot, and brought with her the antlers of a moose which she had shot.

Hollinshead and Stewart, two miners, who had been at work for a year, had 1,500 ounces, worth about $25,000. Other tenderfeet had done better, for in a few weeks some of them had cleaned up from $10,000 to $15,000. Several of the men had bought claims on time, paying a small sum down and agreeing to pay all the way from $10,000 to $25,000 in three to six months. Most of them cleaned up enough gold in a month to pay for their claims and still have a good sum left over.

When the men arrived in San Francisco they found the United States mint closed for the day, and so they carried their sacks of gold to the office of Selby's smelting works. They were weather-beaten and roughly dressed, but the spectators forgot their appearance when they began to produce sacks of gold dust ranging from $1,000 to $3,000 in value. Some of the sacks were regular buckskin bags, well made; others were of canvas, black and grimy from long handling with dirty fingers. As fast as the bags were weighed they were ripped open with a sharp knife and the contents were poured out on the broad counter. Then some of the miners produced from bundles and coat pockets glass fruit jars and jelly tumblers filled with gold dust and covered with writing paper, carefully secured with twine. It seems that the supply of gold bags ran out and this was the only way to bring the treasure down.

When all the gold dust was poured out it made a nice heap, on which the spectators gazed as though fascinated; but the smelting men calmly scraped it up and cast the yellow dust into a big pot, which was wheeled into the smelting room.

A letter from one of the officials of the Alaska Commercial Company, at Circle City, gives this account of the great rush to the new diggings:

"The excitement on the river is indescribable, and the output of the new Klondyke district is almost beyond belief. Men who had nothing last fall are now worth a fortune. One man has worked forty square feet of his claim and is going out with $40,000 in dust. One-quarter of the claims are now selling at from $15,000 to $50,000. The estimate of the district is given as thirteen square miles, with an average of $300,000 to the claim, while some are valued as high as $1,000,000 each. A number of claims have been purchased for large sums on a few months' credit, and the amount has been paid out of the ground before it became due.

"At Dawson sacks of gold dust are thrown under the counters in the stores for safekeeping. The peculiar part of it is that most of the locations were made by men who came in last year, old-timers not having had faith in the indications until the value of the region was assured, whereupon prices jumped so high that they could not get in. Some of the stories are so fabulous I am afraid to repeat them for fear of being suspected of the infection.

"There are other discoveries reported a little beyond and on the Stewart River, but these have not yet been verified."