CHAPTER XVIIl. 



THE TIGER CREEK TRAIL AND THE POTARO- 

 KONAWARUK ROAD. 



The Tiger Creek Trail. — The path from Tumatumari to the Tiger 

 Creek placers passes over two long ridges of diabase, off-sets from the 

 mass which gives ri.se to the Tumatumari Cataracts, and when nearing 

 Tiger Creek traverses low-lying land the only rock there seen being 

 quartz-porphyr3^ After crossing the creek the path follows the course 

 of the stream, in the bed of which are numerous boulders of diabase, to 

 the lowest falls which are caused by the creek passing over a ridge of 

 diabase in a series of leaps, the total drop being from thirty to forty 

 feet. This ridge is part of the great dyke which, a few miles to the 

 north-north-west, causes the cataracts at Tumatumari, and to the south 

 gives rise to the Konawaruk Mountains. Diabase is the only rock seen 

 for about a mile from here to where a small waterfall occurs. From 

 above this waterfall to the head of the Top Falls, a distance of about 

 two miles, the rocks consist of gneiss traversed here and there by 

 narrow dykes of diabase. A good exposure of the gneiss is seen at the 

 Top Falls. From these falls to the placers which belonged to the 

 Garnett Syndicate the path leads over diabase-hills covered in places 

 with concretionary ironstone-gravels. Here and there in the beds 

 oi the streams are exposures of quartz-porphyry and felsite. The 

 ironstone-gravels are frequently auriferous. At the Garnett 



Syndicate placers a reef of granular auriferous quartz is exposed. 

 Samples from this yielded to assay from two pennyweights to sixty-nine 

 pennyw^eights of gold and from six to fourteen pennyweights of silver 

 per ton of the rock. 



From the Tiger Creek placers to those of Quintette on the Konawak 

 Creek concretionary ironstone and diabase are the prevalent i*ocks, the 

 latter occurring in great boulders on the surface, and in the gravels at 

 the heads of the creeks. About two miles from the Tiger Creek 

 placers the road crosses an exposure of a friable conglomerate of 

 rounded qui rtz-pebbles which is apparently of recent origin. 



The path from Quintette to Gloria Placer passes principally over 

 concretionary ironstone and ironstone-gravels. At Gloria Placer, situ- 

 ated on a tributary of the Handrail Creek, which falls into the Mahdia 

 Creek, a thin bed of a friable recent conglomerate of quartz-pebbles was 

 found during the working of the placer, the gravel from which, upon 

 assay, yielded gold at the rate of five pennyweights to the ton of the 



