142 C. W. Hayes — Expedition through the Yukon District. 



pact greenish-black rock, traversed by many streaks of lighter 

 green serjjentine and white veins apparently of calcite. The 

 rocks of the southern range which extends westward from St 

 Elias differ widely from those exposed in Scolai pass.. About 

 Taral they consist for the most ]3art of siliceous talcose schist 

 with gray hornblende granite, which is apparently eruptive. 

 Between Taral and the coast the prevailing rocks are bluish-gray 

 quartzite or quartzite-schist. The moraines of glaciers along the 

 lower course of Copper river flowing from the eastward are com- 

 posed largely of eruptive granites and granitoid gneiss contain- 

 ing inclusions of black slate and schist. All the sedimentary 

 rocks between the Chittenah and the coast have been so thor- 

 oughly metamorphosed that their original bedding is wholly 

 obliterated, and no statement can yet be made as to their prob- 

 able age. 



Rocks of Prince William Sound. — Forming the shores about 

 Prince William sound there is a series of black shales and thin- 

 bedded dark-brown sandstones. They are highly contorted and 

 .somewhat altered, especially the shales. The strike, wherever 

 any regularity can be detected, is about north-and-south, and 

 the dips are generally steep, often vertical. They bear a strong 

 resemblance to the rocks of the Yakutat series described by Rus- 

 sell,'''^ and it is not improbable that they are the continution west- 

 ward of that series. Fossil plants are reported to occur in these 

 rocks at some points on Prince William sound, but none have 

 yet been collected. While the series is perhaps all Mesozoic or 

 younger, any statement as to its age made at the present time 

 must be regarded as purely hypothetic. 



Mineral Resources. 



Gold. — Placer gold occurs widely disseminated throughout the 

 Yukon basin, though only in a few places has it been found in 

 sufflcient quantity to make profitable working. The most im- 

 portant of these are bars along the Lewes between Teslin and 

 Little Salmon rivers and on Forty-mile creek, a southern tribu- 

 tary of the Yukon emptying near the 141st meridian. Ten men 

 were located on the bars of the Lewes, and, although the water 



* An Expedition to Mount St Elias, Alaska : Nat. Geog. Mag., vol. iii, 

 1891, p. 167. 



