Fisheries.— With the marked decrease in the fur products — from $3,054,414 in IN: to $2,121,611 in 1891— the fishery industries rose during the same period from $1,447,478 to $2,856,742 annually, thus making it temporarily of primary importance in Alaskan trade. To include 1916 the product of Alaskan fisheries aggregates in round figures, $260,000,000. Of this amount $20,000,000 came from cod, whale, halibut, etc., in contradistinction to the far more productive of all branches — the salmon industry. From 1868 to 1880 the average out put of all fisheries was about $170,000. The following decade saw the product quintupled, the income from 1881-90 averaging $850,000 annually — almost half the value of the furs— of which nine-tenths were derived from the salmon. The subsequent growth in the salmon industry has been constant and astonishing. The average annual values in periods of five years are as follows : 1891-95, $2,100,000; 1896 1900, $3,400,000; 1901-05, $6,700,000; 1906-10, $11,000,000; and 1911-15, $16,900,000. Except for one year (1913) the increase has been un interrupted from 1905 to 1915. The year of maximum productivity for this period was 1914, $19,474,393, followed closely by 1915 with values of $19,053,905. The output is again steadily increasing, the values for •1916 for canned salmon alone being $23,269,429, with the probability that this sum will be very largely increased in 1917. Although temporarily sur passed by the gold output, the salmon is now the most valuable single product of Alaska, and affects industrially the maximum number of persons. The plants are elaborate, including at least 100 canneries, and five hatcheries. The entire fisheries give employment to about 22,000 persons, of whom some 4,000 are natives. The entire investments exceed $37,000,000, of which the salmon industry alone amounts to $35,000,000.
Mineral Resources. In 1880 Alaska began gold mining, but the yearly product was not considered of importance until it passed the million-dollar mark for 1892. The development is clearly shown by the average annual output for decades: 1881-90, $462,000; 1891-1900, $2,821,000; 1901-10, $14,572,000, and for the five years ending with 1915, $16,418,485. The total products to include 1915 aggregate $260,858,943, divided by districts as follows: Pacific Coast belt, $76,259,295; Copper River and Cook Inlet region, $6,613,783; Yukon Basin, $106,423,169; Seward Peninsula and North western Alaska, $71,562,700. The mining oper ations of 1916 added to these figures a value of $11,140,000 in placer gold and $5,912,736 from the lode mines, a total value for the year of $17,052,736.
Of the total yield of gold in Alaska, 72 per cent is obtained from placers, 27.6 per cent from lode-mines, and 0.4 per cent from copper ores. Juneau is the most important of the lode-mining centres, although some lode-mines are in operation at Fairbanks, and in the Kus kokwim and Nome districts. In the season of
1916, 42 dredges were operating in the streams of Alaska, 37 of these being in the waters of the Seward Peninsula. These great machines recovered 94 per cent of the entire value won from Alaska's gold placers, the output of the small workings reaching little above $600,000. The Territory of Alaska, as regards its mining interests, is classified as follows: (1) The Pacific Coast Belt includes all mines in southeastern Alaska — Ketchikan, Wrangell, Juneau and Berner Bay regions. Far greatest in productivity are the quartz mines of Juneau, where the famous Treadwell lode mines on Douglas Island, the largest gold mines in the world, with their plant of concen trators, stamps, workshops, etc., have produced nine-tenths of the gold of the Pacific belt. The yield of its three largest mines in 1905 exceeded and in 1908 was 4000,000, and in 1916 attained an output of $4,500,000. Second in importance are the quartz mines on the mainland near Juneau. In 1916 there were 13 lode mines producing ore, and the output was $5,912,736, an almost uninterrupted yearly increase from 1897. The average of the past five years exceeds $5,500,000 annually. (2) The Copper River district has averaged an output of $300,000, which has increased for the past five years to $450,000, with its maximum of $605,390 in 1915. (3) The Yukon Basin has produced a larger amount of gold than any other Alaskan district. Of surpassing importance were the placer diggings of the Tanana watershed, where the Fairbanks yield of $350,000 in 1904 rose to $3,750,000 in 1905, and then gradually to $9,200,000 in 1908. The maximum for the Yukon Basin was $11,580,000 in 1909, since which time, despite the discovery of new placers in the basins of the Innoko and upper Kuskokwim, the production has fallen very gradually to $7,367,776 in 1915, of which more than $300,000 came from lode-mines. (4) The Seward Peninsula is better known to the public as the Nome region. This district sprang into fame when the unimportant output of $75,000 in 1898 rose to $2,800,000 in 1899. The yearly out put reached a maximum of $7,500,000 in 1906; after that it decreased steadily to $2,535,000 in 1913, but is again tending upward, the product of 1915 being $2,920,000. The gold production from 1901 to 1907 amounted to $37,000,000, the Nome district yielding about $28,000,000. Thirty-six deep mines were operated in 1915 in the Nome district, where the total gold prod uct was about $1,500,000, while some $700,000 came from the Council district. (5) Among smaller isolated districts the most promising for future increases with their outputs in 1915 are: Tolovana, 50 miles northwest of Fair banks, $60,000; Kuskokwim, $110,000; Chisana, $135,000; Inoko, $190,000; Koyukuk, $300,000; Hot Springs, $550,000, and Iditarod, more than $2,000,000. These are placer mines, in which some steam dredges are at work.