| Summary: | Boat Will Suck Gold On Beach. BOAT WILL SUCK GOLD ON BEACH Captain John C. Benson of Nome, Alaska, who is in the city, has plans perfected for an entirely new and novel scheme for mining gold from the beach sands at Nome, by means of a centrifugal suction pump mounted on his steamboat the Gold King. He will move out of the San Francisco harbor May 25 and expects to be in operation early in June. "On the twin decks of my steamboat I have placed 2050 square feet of sluices, with 12 amalgamators, and a three-cell flotation machine," Mr. Benson said today. "The sand along the beach is famous for the enormous quantity of gold which has been mined from it and which still is in it. There is a great quantity of this sand on the ocean beach and at th»3 mouths of the river which will run more than $1.50 a yard. It will cost me less than 10 cents a yard to handle it. I can handle 8000 cubic yards in 24 hours. Method Is Tested. "This method has been tested by Captain Henry Finch of Nome, who used a pump mounted on a small barge, cut a hole in the ice on the banks of the river, and put a diver down with a suction pump. He took out $1500 in three days, but the water was too cold for such operations except as an experiment." Wellman A. Clark of Spokane is attorney for Mr. Benson.
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