![]() ![]() Pichard tried and failed to use an electric-powered furnace to melt frozen ground others pumped hot water into and out of their mine shafts and it was an accident in 1898 that led to the widespread use of steam in the thawing process. The Klondike-Alaska Gold Rush inspired much innovation, particularly in the field of thawing. Building wood fires was not only inefficient-it used large amounts of wood and only thawed about one foot of gravel in a day-but the tunnels quickly filled with smoke and carbon monoxide which burned the miners' eyes and could kill by asphyxiation. The process of drift mining involves digging vertical shafts down to bedrock and then horizontal tunnels along the gold-rich layer called a paystreak. The earliest arrivals in northern gold fields had no choice but to build wood fires to melt the rock-hard combination of soil, gravel, and ice, but the work was painstakingly slow. Unlike at southern latitudes, the ground in the Far North was frozen all year round, locking the gold in an icy embrace. In 1898 when thousands of eager gold-seekers rushed to Alaska and the Klondike, they encountered an obstacle that many did not anticipate: permafrost. Miners used these small, boxy boilers to excavate placer gold throughout the region that is today Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. A 'doghouse' steam boiler used to melt permafrost ground in the most remote Alaskan locations.
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