A fascinating look into the incredibly rough and tumble world of prospecting for gold in Alaska in the late nineteenth century. W. H. Pierce was an explorer, gold miner, and observer of the natural world. He even describes finding fossils and wondering if their extinction may have been due to climate change. What is most remarkable was Pierce's persistence over many years despite many disappointments. Upon his return in 1889, he began working on this book. Professor James Harrison Carruth, a Yale-educated Kansas professor, was the editor.