granted that some government kindly pays for it all. On the contrary, the only official influences are a severe check on such scientific work. While a native Egyptian can plunder tombs with but little hindrance, any one desiring to preserve objects and promote knowledge must (after obtaining the permission of the Egyptian Government for the exact place he wants to work) be officially inspected at his own expense (a matter of twenty or thirty pounds a season), and then, after all, give up to the Government half of all he finds, without any recompense. The English Government long ago gave up all claim for British subjects to occupy any post in the Cairo Museum, thus putting a decisive bar on the hopes of would-be students and hindering the object very effectually.

In face of all these disadvantages, work has yet been carried on by the Egypt Exploration Fund and by the Egyptian Research Account; both rely on English and American support, and the latter body is intended expressly to help students in training. Besides these, private work has been carried on during several years by two or three other explorers, partly at their own cost, partly helped by friends. The two societies above named have kept to the principles that everything shall be published as soon as possible, and that all the antiquities removed from Egypt shall be divided among public museums as gifts in return for the support from various places, nothing ever being sold publicly or privately. In this way several centers in America send large annual contributions, have representatives on the London Committee of the Exploration Fund, and receive their share for museums every year.

Besides this organizing of ways and means, there is quite as important organization needed in the excavations. At present most of the above-named work is done by a corps of men who have been engaged at it for many years. They leave their homes and assemble as soon as the winter begins; any dealing in antiquities or misconduct since the last season excludes them from rejoining. They each know their work, what to preserve, how to leave everything intact in the ground where found, and how best to manage different kinds of excavating. With such men it is always possible to screw more information out of a site, however much it may have been already wrecked in ancient or modern times. And it is far safer to leave such men unwatched, with the certainty that they will receive a fair value for all they find, than it is to drive a gang under the lash, on bare wages, without rewards to keep them from pilfering. The English system means mutual confidence and good faith; the native and French system of force means the destruction of both information and antiquities.

And yet besides this there is the essential business of observing and recording. Every hole dug must have a meaning and be understood, as to the date of the ground at different levels and the nature of the place. Everything must be spelled out as the work advances; any difficulties that can not be explained must be tried with all possible hypotheses; each detail must either fall into place as agreeing with what is known, or be built in as a new piece of knowledge.

Twenty years ago nothing was known of the date of any Egyptian manufactures, not even of pottery or beads, which are the commonest. Now, at present it is seldom that anything is found which can not be dated tolerably near by, and in some classes of remains the century or even the reign can be stated at once, without a single word to show it. The science of Egyptian archæology is now in being.

In this, therefore, as in many other matters, the Anglo-Saxon taste for private enterprise is the ruling power, and in spite of political obstacles and of taxation, which are happily unknown in other sciences, the private work of individuals has quietly traced out the foundations of one of the earliest civilizations of mankind.

THE GOLD SANDS OF CAPE NOME.
By Prof. ANGELO HEILPRIN,
LATE PRESIDENT OF THE PHILADELPHIA GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY.

One of the most interesting contributions to the history of gold and gold mining has undoubtedly been discovered in the region of Cape Nome, Alaska, during the past summer. Vague reports have from time to time, for a period of a year or more, been sent out from the bleak and inhospitable shores of Bering Sea of the discovery there of rich deposits of placer gold, and of almost fabulous wealth acquired by a few fortunate prospectors—a new Klondike on American soil—but these gained little credence beyond the portals of transportation companies and the organizers of “boom” enterprises. A few of the more credulous and those unmindful of adventure and hardship took practical action on the receipt of the reports, and prepared to buffet the still ice-bound waters of the Pacific to gain early access to the new land of promise. In a brief period the fame of Golovnin Bay had been spread broadcast, only to be again dimmed by the later announcements that the earlier reports of finds were only “fakes.” Making and unmaking are a part of all new mining centers, and in an incredibly short time all manner of conclusions are arrived at regarding the possibilities of a location.

An Off-Shore View of Nome.

New reports of finds made along the coast of Bering Sea, about fifty miles west of Golovnin Bay, called renewed attention to the region, and those who in the early summer of the past year (1899) timidly ventured their fortunes to share in a possible discovery, found, on their arrival at the tundra-bound shores about Cape Nome, that miles of territory had already been located as claim sites, that sluice-boxes were in full operation, and that sackfuls of gold dust and nuggets had been carefully laid to one side, representing “outputs” of tens of thousands of dollars. At this time many of the journals of civilization in the East, repeating the warnings that they persistently threw out following the discovery of gold in the Klondike, jealously guarded the secrets of the earth by doubting, or even denying, the claims to discovery, but, withal, wisely counseling against that haphazard and purseless rush which is one of the invariable accompaniments of gold announcements. A new mining district had suddenly sprung into existence, and before two months had passed—i. e., by the early days of September—a full front of tents and frame houses took possession of what continues to remain a dreary and desolate expanse of ocean beach—sufficiently pleasant in the quiet, balmy days of summer and autumn, but wofully exposed to the hurricane blasts of the arctic winter—and gave shelter to from three to four thousand adventurers, where formerly a few Indians and Eskimos from the still farther northwest and King’s Island constituted a straggling and accidental population. This, in brief, is the initial history of the Nome or Anvil City mining region, which will almost certainly call to it in the coming spring fifteen to twenty thousand additional inhabitants.

A Street in Nome.

Far more interesting to the one who has not been properly rewarded in his search for placer claims than the placer deposits themselves are the gold-bearing beach sands, whose productivity will mainly be responsible for the