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4to (9.4" x 5.9"), modern red cloth with gilt title on front cover, black cloth spine, marbled endpapers, original printed wrappers, 44 pp., "chromatographic" folding map (23.2" x 27.5" plus margins), folded into pocket in the back. CONDITION: Map very good, light wear, a few light red marks from the bleeding of printed areas, a few minor separations along old folds, but no losses to printing; contents bright and clean, vertical crease to pp. 39 40, a few tiny chips along the upper margins of multiple pages. An appealing Klondike Gold Rush-era map of Alaska identifying known gold-bearing areas and routes to gold fields, accompanied by text on Alaska s geography, geology, gold deposits, and more. Depicting Alaska, the Klondike District, and the westernmost portion of the Northwest Territory, this map spans from Port Simpson in the east to the Bering Strait in the west, and from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Pacific Ocean in the south. Highlighted in red are over a dozen coal and gold fields as well as one copper mine, and areas colored yellow and green identify the Birch Creek and Fortymile mining districts. Red lines trace land routes to the Klondike (such as the Old Telegraph Trail and the Dalton Trail through British Columbia), and the all-waters route via St. Michael and Chilkoot Pass (which originates from San Francisco). A shaded circle indicates the boundaries of the Fort St. Michael Reservation, and two inset maps at the lower right depict the Klondike Gold Region and the Trails from Tide Water to the Headwaters of the Yukon River. Below the title is a scale of miles and a note stating that the map was published in January 1898 based on chart T of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, edition of June 1897. The forty-four pages of text offer a brief history of Alaska and treat such subjects as rivers, climate, routes to the Klondike, and geology, including original deposits, or quartz veins, placer deposits, probable extent of gold-bearing deposits, coal and lignite, and other metals. Geologist Samuel Franklin Emmons (1841 1911) notes that In the autumn of 1896 still richer discoveries were made a short distance east of the boundary, along the Klondike River, and a great rush of miners to these now famous diggings set in the following spring [of 1897]. Within a single year the yield from this [Klondike] region has exceeded in amount the purchase money for the entire Territory of Alaska, and though a large portion of the gold has come from territory within the Canadian lines, American miners for the most part have taken it out. An attractive and informative Klondike Gold Rush map accompanied by a substantial text. REFERENCES: Arctic Bibliography 18358; Kurutz The Klondike & Alaska Gold Rushes 585; Lingenfelter (Alaska Section) 666; Lingenfelter (Yukon Section) 547; Wickersham 8223.
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