POLAR GOLD QUEST.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 115, 1 October 1912, Page 7

POLAR GOLD QUEST.

MINING IN THE ARCTIC ARCHIPELAGO. ■ The formation of a gold-seeking expedition to explore Baffin's Land, the largest of the islands lyng between the North American mainland and the North Pole, with the solitary exception of Greenland has been l announced. The objective of the expedition is Pond's Bay, on the northern coast of Baffin's Land, lying between the seventy-second and the seventy-third parallels of north latitude, and distant only about 1200 miles from the Pole. Goid was discovered at this remote spot last year by one of the members of a Canadian Government expedition to the Arctic, and the party which is now setting out for the purpose of working these auriferous deposits almost in the shadow of the Pole expects to develop a profitable min-1 ing industry in the northern solitudes.

On June 30 a party of four men, two of them residents of Toronto, left the city for St. John's, Newfoundland, where they will be joined by 18 others, and the whole party will leave for an eighteen months' trip to Baffin's Laud. The Toronto members of the party are Messrs A. W. Scott (who has earned for himself the sobriquet "Lucky Scott" on account of his proverbial good luck in mining enterprises) .and Alexander Gillies. Mr. Scott has mined practically all over the continent, and has seen service in various enterprises all over the globe. Mr. Gillies is a well-known prospector and miner.

The other members of the party include Messrs Ernie Holland, of Porcupine, Tom Morrissey of Nevada (both seasoned prospectors and miners )j S. Osgoode Pell, of S.-H. Pell and Co., and three placer miners from the Western States. The crew will bring the personnel of the'expedition up to 22. A steamer of 300 tons burden has been chartered, and the party was to leave St. John's about Julv 10.

_ The initial destination of the expedition -will be Pond's Bay, on the northern coast of Baffin's Land. Reports of placer goldfields in that vicinity were brought back by the Government steamer Arctic' last autumn, Captain Janes, the second officer, having made several gold discoveries and having secured rich samples. Captain Janes is to accompany the present expedition as guide and interpreter. He lived for eight months among the Eskimaux, and •peaks their language fluently.

RECORDS OF FRANKLIN.

The party expects to bring back records left near Pond's Bay by Sir John Franklin, the veteran Arctic explorer, who, with 150 men, the crews of two British ships, lost his life in an unsuccessful dash to the North Pole 70 years ago. The Eskimaux told the officers of the Arctic stories of a cache miles inland where some of the records of their Franklin expedition were buried, and substantiated tUeir' 'tale with relics dating around 1840, when Franklin disappeared on his last quest. The vicinity of Pond's Bay has proved a decidedly "dangerous spot for Arctic expeditions. It is about 17 degrees from the Pole, and -during the long night of winter the temperature drops down to from 50 to 70 degrees below zero. The only inhabitants of the country are small bands of Esquimaux who settled on Baffin's Land many years ago, a colony from Greenland'having been established there by Commodore Peary, the explorer. The nearest settlement of white men is 1000 miles away, at one of Dr. Wilfred Grenfell's missionary stations on the Greenland coast.

The greatest danger confronting an expedition to northern Baffin's Land lies in the shifting ice fields. A ship may be in clear water, steaming along under favorable conditions, when a change in the wind may shift the ice field and grind it...to pieces between enormous loet.

The party has been provisioned for two years. The expedition is taking 75 barrels of flour and enormous quantities of pemmican, dessicated potatoes and other vegetables. Canned goods are being' taken>-in'; limited I 'quantities only. Captain Janes last autumn built for the Dominion Government a cache containing provisions for G5 men for 125 days as ,a relief spot for shipwrecked mariners and explorers. This is within easy distance of Pond's Bay, and could, of course, be drawn upon if necessary. "We expect to spend nearly all our time in placer mining," said Mr. Scott, who will command the expedition, in an interview, before leaving Toronto. "Captain Janes found the gold in black sand and fine pebbles, but as they bad no miners along with thera they merely brought back specimens. The formation of the country is much the same as. that in Northern Ontario, with lots of rockexposed. We are taking along lumber for the building of sluice boxes and pans for washing out the gold. . WORK IN THE WINTER.

"The expedition should reach Pond's Bay some time in August. We will build camps and winter quarters immediately. The ship will return some time in November, and leave us to work through the winter. The Arctic night lasts about three months, but twilight will prevail, f.or hours each day, and \ve should be able to work practically all time. When we reach our destination the waather should be as fine as it ever gets so far north, and the country is covered with flowers and game in abundance."

The party from New York will take along a complete moving picture apparatus, with the intention of recording the events of their long stay in the Arctic. A full complement of doctors will be taken to care for the health of the expedition.

Another party of Canadian explorers, under the command of Captain' Munn and Captain John Bartlett, former commander of the Arctic, have already left. They will engage in placer mining, though in a different spot from where the Scott expedition intends go in". The Scott expedition is financed by a group of capitalists of New York, who control the International Nickel Company.

COALFIELDS ON BAFFIN'S LAND,

I Captain Janes believes that the two largest coalfields in the world have boon j discovered on Canadian soil, located in Baffin's Land. The two are about 100 miles apart. In spite of their high altitude, he says they will be workable all the year round. The coal is so easily secured tnat it may bo dug from the surface with a shovel.

"This northern part of Canada will be the greatest country in the world," says Captain Jones. His discoveries show that Baffin's Land was, ages ago, a very different kind of country from what it is now. Twenty-five feet under the surface he discovered an immense forest in perfect preservation. The trees, pointing due east and west, arc laid as flat as a wheat field blown over by a cyclone; the timber is in perfect shfipe; even the cones from the tree tops are as fresh as the day they fell. At the present day there is not a tree growing for 1000 milea around the. buried forest.