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What was the way in which gold was assayed during the Alaskan gold rush?
291fifth
Posts: 25,189 ✭✭✭✭✭
Did the US have an assay office in Alaska or did the gold have to be transported back to San Francisco or some other point?
All glory is fleeting.
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http://www.yukonmuseums.ca/treasures/dcm/12.html
ANA 50+ year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
Author: 3rd Edition of the SampleSlabs book, https://sampleslabs.info/
Hope, Alaska, had an assay office according to this website:
https://sites.google.com/site/hopehistoricalsite2//home/history
" Summer 1897 was the start of the Klondike Gold Rush, but a few thousand came to Cook Inlet also. The summer of 1898 saw 8,000 prospectors on Cook Inlet. For a few weeks that summer, Sunrise City, with 800 people, was the largest city in Alaska. During the boom years, Sunrise had three general stores, three saloons, a billiard hall, a restaurant, a hotel, a post office, a social hall, a cemetery, a ferry service, and a rail tramway that extended north to docks and warehouses near the mouth of Sixmile Creek. Sunrise City was the judicial center of the Cook Inlet, having a U.S. Commissioner and assistant U.S. Marshal. Hope had two boat landings, two general stores, two saloons, a brewery, a pool hall, a restaurant, a hotel, an assay office, a deputy recorder's office, a post office, a school, a social hall, and a sawmill. Hope City and Sunrise City were the oldest gold towns on the Iditarod Trail, a government mail route. "
I would be surprised if there were not other assay offices close to the gold discovery. Human enterprise and ingenuity almost dictate that such is the case. Some of the gold (and silver) was likely brought to West Coast facilities for assay as well.
Kind regards,
George
Get the book ' A California Gold Rush History by Q. David Bowers.'..... I have a signed copy... A really great book with very detailed - and interesting - information. Cheers, RickO
There was never a US Assay Office in Alaska. There were many private assayers. A private assayer would cut a small chip from the corner of a bar, determine the purity and stamp that plus weight and value on the bar. The chip was often the assayer's fee. This determined how much value was credited to the miner, but always depended on final US Mint/Assay Office results.
Gold from Alaska and the Canadian Yukon was usually melted in to bars, then shipped to the Seattle Assay Office or the San Francisco Mint. (See From Mint to Mint for info on the US Assay Offices and on methods of assay and refining.) Australian and Philippine gold went to San Francisco or London depending on market conditions and shipping costs.
(See From Mint to Mint for info ,,,,,,,,Please Roger,
you must be accurate. How will people find your book ?
R.I.P. Bear