. >> shawn ryan: the old prospectors would put a shaft down under the creek. >> bob simon: shawn ryanor, says a lot of placer gold has been mined here. >> ryan: they figure, at the turn of the century, there was somewhere between 13 million and 20 million ounces of placer gold taken out of the klondike. >> bob simon: which was worth what then? >> ryan: right now, that'd be worth well over, you know, between $13 billion and $20 billion worth of gold, at today's prices, so... >> bob simon: 100years later, they're still mining the same creeks and riverbanks. the miners use back hoes now, not the gold pans you see in clint eastwood movies. ian thomas is digging dirt that's already been mined once. he's looking for leftovers. his equipment separates rock from dirt, and then gives the dirt a bath to wash out the gold. how you doing? >> ian thomas: we have good years, we have bad years. >> bob simon: in other words, you don't really want to answer the question. >> thomas: not really. >> bob simon: dave miller also didn't want to tell us how much gold he finds, but he did show us the frisbee-

ryan. control of the senate is hanging in the balance. what's the outlook for election night? eric shawn has been doing the work on this. >> good morning, everyone. you know, election night could turn into election weeks. take a slew of dead heat senate races and unusual state election laws and you could end up not knowing which party controls the senate until after congress is seated next year. remember this? the count and recount in florida. it took 60 days before george bush was certified as winner over al gore in the presidential race. now we could face a rerun of sorts. republicans are predicted to pick up enough seats to hand them the majority. two will head to runoffs after election day according to the most recent polls. and the louisiana senate race may not be decided until december 6th. if neither one gets at least 50% next month. the most recent real clear politics poll average predicts that will happen. you know that guarantees practically that the contest won't be decided until three weeks before christmas. take a look at georgia. those voters could be shaking off their new