>KLONDIKE, a district in Yukon Territory, north-western Canada, approximately in 64° N. and 140° W. The limits are rather indefinite, but the district includes the country to the south of the Klondike River, which comes into the Yukon from the east and has several tributaries, as well as Indian River, a second branch of the Yukon, flowing into it some distance above the Klondike. The richer gold-bearing gravels are found along the creeks tributary to these two rivers within an area of about 800 sq. m. The Klondike district is a dissected peneplain with low ridges of rounded forms rising to 4250 ft. above the sea at the Dome which forms its centre. All of the gold-bearing creeks rise not far from the Dome and radiate in various directions toward the Klondike and Indian rivers, the most productive being Bonanza with its tributary Eldorado, Hunker, Dominion and Gold Run. Of these, Eldorado, for the two or three miles in which it was gold-bearing, was much the richest, and for its length probably surpassed any other known placer deposit. Rich gravel was discovered on Bonanza Creek in 1896, and a wild rush to this almost inaccessible region followed, a population of 30,000 coming in within the next three or four years with a rapidly increasing output of gold, reaching in 1900 the climax of $22,000,000. Since then the production has steadily declined, until in 1906 it fell to $5,600,000. The richest gravels were worked out before 1910, and most of the population had left the Klondike for Alaska and other regions; so that Dawson, which for a time was a bustling city of more than 10,000, dwindled to about 3000 inhabitants. As the ground was almost all frozen, the mines were worked by a thawing process, first by setting fires, afterwards by using steam, new methods being introduced to meet the unusual conditions. Later dredges and hydraulic mining were resorted to with success. Entry: KLONDIKE</b>