East Valley Conclusion 



launch, who had been employed during our absence in 

 carrying various parties of engineers and others in the 

 employ of the Government up and down the river, and 

 ascertained from him that he would be ready to take us 

 down to the oil region in two days' time. 



Our discovery of gold and other minerals had, as is 

 usual, brought about an epidemic of what one might call 

 prospecting-fever, and many farmers and others had 

 come up the river and started excavations in most 

 unlikely places. There were, however, a number of 

 foreign prospectors who knew more about the business, 

 and a party of these had been working in the mountains 

 between Base Camp and Three Forks. They had 

 found small quantities of auriferous alluvium in certain 

 parts of this section of the valley, but the gold was not 

 in paying quantities. They had therefore turned their 

 attention to the mountains, and had up to the present 

 located two veins of Copper Pyrites, of which we saw 

 samples in Base Camp. 



When we arrived at the oil-field we were first taken 

 to the southern anticline, where three bore-holes had 

 been sunk without result. A fourth, however, had 

 tapped a supply of natural gas which had been success- 

 fully capped. The gas was under high pressure, and as 

 this did not appreciably fall when allowed to blow off 

 freely for twenty-four hours, it seemed probable that 

 there was a very large supply. 



Valuable as this supply might have been had it been 

 found in the neighbourhood of Lyell, or of one of the 

 other large towns, it was of little use here in the wilder- 

 ness. A pipe line even to Base Camp would cost so 

 much in establishment and upkeep that the gas would 



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