Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 20.djvu/887

* YUKON GOLD-FIELDS. 749 YUMA. the neig)iboriiig liills, but no gokl-beuriiig quartz, in quantity at least, has yet been found in silu in the region. Most of the gokl lias been mined from the river-bed deposits. But in many places the terraces which lie ") feet or more above the streams have been found snlliciently rich to re- pay working. The values are usually concen- trated along bed-rock, sometimes im])regnating the latter to the depth of a, foot. ]<;xcept for a few feet near the surface llie grovind is frozen throughout the year, and tlu! work of thawing and excavation is extremely difficult and tedious. The gravels are washed during the summer months, usually in short sluices. The total pro- duction of the Klondike district from ISOli to 1902 inclusive wa.s approximately $80,000,000. The Nome district, which is next in importance to the Klondike, is situated on the southern side of Seward Peninsula, at the entrance to Norton Sound. The first discoveries were made in the summer of 1898, and the next year witnessed the establishment of Nome City, .and the development of mining into an im|)ortant industry. A pe- culiar feature of the district is that the gold occurs not only in the creek and bench deposits of the small valleys, but it is also found in the gravels of the coastal plain, which is a tundra, and even more extensively in the beach sands. The creek deposits are similar in character to those occurring in the Klondike. A large lunii- ber of the small streams that drain the southern side of the peninsula have been worked, includ- ing Anvil, Cripple, Eldorado. Ophir, Solomon, and Kugruk creeks, each of which gives its name to a local district. The coastal plain in the vicinity of Nome is covered with a heavy growth of moss, and beneath this there are la.yers of gravel from 40 to 80 feet thick which carry gold. The methods employed in mining these deposits are similar to those used in working the creek gravels. Most of the excavation is done with the aid of steam for thawing the frozen gravels. The production of the Nome district from its ilis- covcry to the close of 19U2 was about $20,000,000. YUKON RIVER. One of the largest rivers of North America. It is formed at Fort Selkirk, Yukon Territory, Canada, by the jiuiction of the Lewes and Pelly rivers, and flows northwestward into Alaska, which it traverses in a southwest direction, finally turning west and emptying into the Bering Sea through a large delta on the south shore of Norton Sound (ilap: Alaska, D 3). Its total length, inchuling the Lewes, is, according to a recent report of the United States Geological Survey. 186.5 miles. The Lewes, which is generally considered the upper course of the main stream, rises in a cluster of lakes (Linde- man, Bennett) in the extreme northwestern cor- ner of British Columbia and on the northern foot of the Chilkoot Pass and flows northward to the Pelly confluence at Fort Selkirk. The upper courses of the river and its tributaries generally flow through narrow valleys inclosed between mountains of moderate elevation, and in some places taking the form of canons. In Alaska the river flows for hundreds of miles through level, moss-covered tundras, where the v.idth. between its low. marshy banks, is from one to two miles, though its depth is not great. The delta is of vast extent, having an area, including the por- tion inclosed by the Kashunuk arm, of 9000 square miles. The volume of discharge of the Yukon has been thought to be fully two-thirds that of the Mississippi, and great quantities of sediment are brought down. There are 2G out- lets over 200 yards wide and numerous smaller channels. All of them, however, are silted up, with a depth of only two to nine feet on the bars, wliilc the .sea for many miles from shore is only a few feet deep. Sea-going steamers can- not, therefore, enter the river, but proceed to the liarlior of Saint Michael, about 70 miles to the north, where they unload into stern-wheel steamers, many of them of majestic size, which jily regularly in summer to Dawson. A fleet of "upper river" steamboats runs lietween Dawson and the yiiite Horse Rapi<ls, where a portage effects a union with the third section of river navigation — from Miles Canon to Bennett. Nav- igation is continuous (although hampered by rapids) between the White Horse and the mouth of the river. The current is over most parts very swift, and the descent very rajiid. From Dawson to the sea. about 1400 miles, the fall is on the average nearly a foot per mile. The navigation of the whole river is free to Canadian vessels; the navigable season is comprised be- tween the months of .June and September or October. The chief settlement on the Yukon is Dawson, at the confluence of Klondike Creek, the centre of the gold-mining region. The largest tributaries join the main stream in Alaska. They are the Porcupine, the Koyukuk. and the Tanana. See Yukon Gold-Fields. For bibliography see Alaska. YULAN. See :Magnolia. YULE, Sir Hexrt (1820-89). An English engineer and Orientalist, born at Inveresk, Scot- land. In 1840 he entered the Bengal engineers; he served in India on various public works, and from 1858 to 18G2 was secretary to the Govern- ment in the Public Vorks Department. In 1862 he was retired with rank of colonel, and from 1875 to 1889 sat in the Indian Cotincil. Besides numerous articles in the .Journals of the Royal Asiatic and Geographical societies he putdished: Cnthnij and the Wni/ Thither (180G) ; The Book of Scr 3Iarco Polo the ^'etwtian (1871); and with Dr. BurnelI,ffo6son-/o?/.?o)i, an Anglo-Indian Glossary (1886: 2d ed. 1903). He wrote the notes for the Hakluyt Society's reprint of the manuscript (1681) diarv of William Hedges (1888-89). YUMA, yoTi'ma (probalily. sons of the river). The most important tribe of Yunian stock (q.v. ), originally occupying a territory on both sides of the Colorado River, above and below the entrance of the Gila, in Arizona and California, and now gathered upon a reservation in the extreme south- eastern corner of California to the number of about 650. being only about one-half their popu- lation of fifty years ago and one-sixth of that in 1800. Like all of this stock, they are agri- cultural and are of fine physique, and although generally peaceful in disposition, have shown themselves brave in their early conflicts with the Americans, Mexicans, and surrounding tribes. Their ordinary shelter was the brushwood wik- iup. They wore very little clothing, but painted and tattooed their bodies in elaborate designs, and were fond of shell and turquoise ornaments