mines rank with the Calumet and Hecla, of Michigan; the Comstock Lode mines, of Nevada; the Homestake, of South Dakota; and the Portland, of Colorado. The Treadwell is the pride of Alaska. Its poetic situ- ation, romantic history, and admirable methods should make it the pride of America. Its management has always been just and liberal. It has had fewer labor troubles than. any other mine in America. There are two towns on the island--Treadwell and Douglas. The latter is the commercial and residential portion of the community--for the towns meet and min- gle together. The entire population, exclusive of natives, is three thousand people--a population that is constantly increas- ing, as is the demand for laborers, at prices ranging from two dollars and sixty cents per day up to five dollars for skilled labor. The island is so brilliantly lighted by electricity that to one approaching on a dark night it presents the appear- ance of a city six times its size. The nine hundred stamps drop ceaselessly, day and night, with only two holidays in a year--Christmas and the Fourth of July. The noise is ferocious. In the stamp-mill one could not distinguish the boom of a can- non, if it were fired within a distance of twenty feet, from the deep and continuous thunder of the machinery. In 1881 the first mill, containing five stamps, was built and commenced crushing ore that came from a streak twenty feet wide. This ore milled from eight to ten dol- lars a ton, proving to be of a grade sufficiently high to pay for developing and milling, and leave a good surplus. It was soon recognized that the great bulk of the ore was extremely low grade, and that, consequently, a large milling capacity would be required to make the enterprise -122- |