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SUPPLEMENTARY INVESTIGATIONS IN THE GRAVEL REGION. 



from Council Hill is seen at Brandy City, and will be described in a subsequent section of this 

 report. Only a small area of bed-rock has been uncovered at Council Hill. Its altitude is 3,963 

 feet. The face of the highest bank shows at bottom a stratum of gravel, bluish in color and con- 

 taining some sandy streaks. The large boulders in this stratum are granite and slate, the latter 

 being in relatively greater quantity than at Fairplay or at Scales'® Diggings. Above the blue gravel 

 there comes first a yellowish streak, and then tine quartz gravel extends up to the volcanic capping. 

 Under this capping the gravel is in all probability continuous to Fairplay, a deposit on the left 

 bank of Rock Creek, about a mile south of Scales's Diggings. The Fairplay bed-rock has an alti- 

 tude of 4,123 feet, or 170 feet above that at Council Hill. The bottom stratum of gravel is from 

 five to twenty feet in thickness, blue in color, not cemented, though hard enough to require the 

 use of powder drifts. It contains many boulders of granite and some of slate or other kinds of 

 crystalline rock. The interstices between the boulders are rilled with a fine quartz gravel. Above 

 the blue stratum there is reddish gravel for about ten feet, and then nearly 1 20 feet of fine white 

 quartz. The volcanic capping at the highest bank was fully a hundred feet thick. It is tufaceous 

 in character, resembling mud or ashes, and is very easily moved. The line between the quartz and 

 tufa is wavy and irregular. The gravel carries considerable charred and petrified wood, and some 

 impressions of leaves. No bones or animal remains have been found. The season of active min- 

 ing is confined to four or five months in winter and spring. 



Scales's Diggings is a place of more importance than the two just mentioned. The gravel deposit 

 is nearly a third of a mile in width and about a mile in length, not including the gravel of Union 

 Hill, which lies on the opposite side of Rock Creek and is probably on the line of the old channel 

 between Scales's and Fairplay. The altitude of the low bed-rock at the Rock Creek outlet of the 

 Cleveland mine I made to be 4,253 feet. A large part of the top gravel lias been removed, espe- 

 cially at the southwestern end of the deposit, though there are still some high banks yet to be washed 

 away on the eastern side of the present main opening. The blue gravel on the bed-rock is of vary- 

 ing thickness, being as much as thirty feet in some places. The overlying white quartz gravel is 

 said to have had a maximum thickness of 150 feet. The lower strata of the gravel abound in large 

 granitic or syenitic boulders, which frequently measure six or eight feet in diameter. They are tightly 

 cemented together, and powder-blasts are necessary to loosen the mass. Many of the boulders are 

 covered with dendritic markings. I saw no boulders like these at any higher altitudes in this 

 vicinity, nor did I see any granitic rock in place. There is said to be a granite country to the 

 north and west of Scales's Diggings, from which the boulders might have come, but I have no 

 more definite information about it. The average fineness of the gold is .935. 



To the north of Scales's Diviners, on the divide between Rock Creek and Slate Crook, and near 

 the heads of Rattlesnake Creek and Gold Run Ravine, there is a large body of gravel, the precise 

 extent of which is not known. The mines at its northern end are known as Poverty Hill. This 

 point has been mentioned on a previous page as the probable continuation of the La Porte channel 

 by way of Secret Diggings and Barnard's. The bed-rock at the northern end of the mines has an 

 altitude of 4,563 feet. The southern bank is nearly a hundred foot in height; the gravel is a fine 

 and sandy white quartz, with a few small streaks of clay. On the bed-rock there is a little iron 

 cement, quite different in character, however, from the lower strata at Scales's and at Fairplay. A 

 half-mile or more to the south of the mine there has been a shaft sunk in gravel. The depth of 

 this shaft I could not ascertain. The altitude of the mouth of the shaft is 4,553 feet, nearly the 

 same as that of the bed-rock just referred to. Upon the surface there was a great deal of " bogus 

 gravel This body of gravel is supposed to extend as far back as the base of the lower end of the 

 lava flow, where it is probably concealed from view at the surface by a comparatively thin cover- 

 ing of volcanic material. I have represented upon the maps (Plates R and U) by dotted lines a 

 possible connection of Poverty Hill with Scales's Diggings. In so doing I have adopted in part 

 the views of Mr. Hendel. It seems clear that some such connection must have existed, and high 

 knolls of slate rock appear to stand in the way of any more direct connection. The crookedness 

 of the path suggested cannot be urged as any objection to its probable accuracy, for there is abun- 



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