70 BULLETIN 131, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



The placers lie mainly on Prichard and Beaver Creeks or on streams 

 tributary to them. The placers occur as bench gravels perched 

 high on the hillsides and the alluvial deposits of the present stream 

 bed. The latter were richest and were first worked mainly by 

 panning and sluicing. Some of them were very rich, among the 

 famous being the Widow and the Gillett, which in 1885 produced 

 $25,000 from a single acre. Rich placers occurred also on Trail 

 Creek, the Myrtle claim especially being noted for large nuggets. 

 Many tributary streams have been worked. The old wash deposits 

 (bench gravels) which have been worked by hydraulicking are not 

 so rich as the recent gravels. The placer gold of the younger gravels 

 is coarse, nuggets up to 40 ounces in weight having been found. 

 These are usually somewhat rough and hackly and many of them 

 contain some of the quartz in which they were originally embedded. 

 The gold ranges in value from $15 to $18 an ounce. The total pro- 

 duction of placer gold in 1905 amounted to about $50,000. 



The St. Joe district has not made any noteworthy production of 

 gold from lode mines. The St. Joe placer deposit is a gravel-covered 

 flat at the head of the middle fork of the St. Joe River. Although 

 discovered in 1870 this deposit has been worked only on the edges, 

 the gravels being deep and so situated that drainage of them is not 

 feasible. No great production has been made. Free gold occurs 

 in quartz seams cutting the bedrock. 



WASHINGTON AND ADAMS COUNTIES 



The Meadows district is noted as containing the Rock Flat gold 

 placer mine from which some gold has been mined. No adequate 

 description of this deposit is available but some reports suggest 

 that it may in part be a deeply weathered igneous intrusive rather 

 than a gravel deposit. It is interesting, mineralogically, as the 

 source of much corundum and a few diamonds. 



The Mineral district may be considered an extension of the Blue 

 Mountain district of Oregon. The Connor Creek, which is the 

 principal mine, has produced about $2,000,000 in gold. The gold 

 is native and is very coarse, associated with pyrite and argentite. 

 It is worth $19 to $20 an ounce. 



In the Seven Devils district some gold occurs in the contact 

 metamorphic copper deposits. A specimen in the National Museum 

 shows leaves and angular masses of gold in cavities in malachite. 

 A little placer gold occurs below the Peacock claim. 



ELECTRUM 



Alloy intermediate between gold and silver Au + Ag Isomeric. 



Native gold is exceedingly variable in its content of silver as has 



been indicated in the value per ounce or fineness given for the gold 



from the various districts. The pale yellow alloy containing approxi- 



