382 Sport and Life. 



Since then the district has had a fitful experience. For a time there 

 was a spurt in quartz, but it developed as a stock-jobbing affair, and went 

 through the usual experience of such movements. For thirty odd years 

 Caribou has consequently been regarded as a " petered-out " mining camp. 

 The old-timers have been digging away in the old claims from which 

 immense volumes of "dust" were taken in early days, uncovering now and 

 again a spot of rich ground that had escaped notice before, and prospecitng 

 for lost leads on the various creeks heading from " Old Baldy " or Mount 

 Agnes. 



During the past three or four years, however that is since the new 

 developments made in Kootenay district Caribou has shared, in common 

 with California, the attention of capitalists, and money for mining develop- 

 ment in and around " Old Baldy," the scene of the gold supply of the 

 Fraser valley, has been gradually flowing in. 



At present it is being diverted to the development of the deep placers 

 in the district and the washing out of the gold which has been released in 

 times past from its native matrix in the rocks and is lodged in the beds of 

 the living and dead rivers. Perhaps some day capital will branch out and 

 attempt one of the most gigantic engineering feats of the ages the 

 piercing of " Old Baldy " in search of the veins of the precious metal 

 now concealed from the miners' gaze by the forest growth and the dense 

 lining of moss underlying it and covering the entire face of the country, 

 excepting in such places as the miner has removed the placer deposits in 

 his search for the gold. Such veins are supposed to be ribboning the 

 famous peak and to have yielded, through the elemental erosion of ages, 

 the metal which enriched the gravel deposits. 



The later development made in Caribou indicates strongly the presence 

 there of the same kind of auriferous dead rivers as mark the flanks of the 

 Sierra in California and extend into Southern Oregon, and to which have 

 been applied the name of the Blue lead. 



The ".giant" has been introduced into these latter-day hydraulic 

 operations in the Caribou district, and volumes of water quite as large as 

 any used in California in the best days of hydraulic mining there, are being 

 handled during the "open season." There is no obnoxious anti-debris 

 law to interfere with mining operations, nor are there any farming lands in 

 danger of being flooded by the overflow of the rivers as was the case 

 in California. The Fraser and all its tributaries flow in deep beds between 

 high banks or benches, or in narrow. r6cky gorges where the mountain 

 ranges are pierced. The navigable waters of the Fraser are too remote 

 from the scene of mining operations to be affected by them, and the fierce 

 floods of spring and summer scour the river channels and keep them at 



