164 ALASKA AND ITS MINERAL RESOURCES 



quartz is in bowlders of varying size. The schist fragments lie 

 flat, and are mixed with sand, showing that the sorting action 

 of running water has not been carried far. In the concentrates 

 from the sluice-boxes the heavier minerals associated with the 

 gold — galena, magnetite, limonite, hornblende, and garnet — are 

 in each case such as are found in the neighboring schists, and 

 the nuggets of gold often have pieces of quartz still adhering to 

 them. All these facts are evidence that the gold is derived from 

 rocks in the vicinity and is not brought from a great distance, 

 perhaps by glaciers, as some erroneously suppose. 



The rocks of the Forty-mile series in the Fortymile district, as 

 already stated, form the west bank of Fortymile creek, and south 

 of the South fork cross the divide between Franklin gulch and 

 Napoleon creek, where they are overlain by green slates of the 

 Rampart series, which in turn are overlain by conglomerates of 

 the Mission creek series. In Franklin creek the bed-rocks are 

 marbles interbeddecl with mica and hornblende schists ; the 

 gravel contains fragments of marble, quartzite, mica-schists, and 

 vein quartz. At one point a quartz vein is found in the bed-rock, 

 and below it native silver has been found in the gravels, which 

 apparently came from this vein. It is the schistose rocks that 

 mostly carry the gold, as the marbles do not show much evidence 

 of veins. In this gulch are two levels ; the higher one, at the head 

 of the gulch, had not been worked, while the pay gold had been 

 found mainly at the lower level, near the mouth of the gulch. 



Chicken creek, so called because its gold occurs in grains the 

 size of chicken feed, drains a wide area toward the Ketchumstock 

 hills to the southwest, and the actual source of the gold is less 

 readily defined. The gravel contains fragments of granite, quart- 

 zite, schist, and marble. 



On Napoleon creek conglomerate forms the bed-rock near the 

 mouth. The gravels contain fragments of quartzite, vein quartz, 

 hornblende-granite, and various eruptive rocks, and the source 

 of the gold is assumed to be the conglomerate, which is made up 

 of fragments of the older rocks, for the rocks higher up the gulch 

 above the conglomerates have not been found to carry much gold. 



The most trustworthy reports from the Klondike region indi- 

 cate that the exceptionally rich placer gravels thus far found 

 occur in side valleys entering the main Klondike valley from 

 the south, such as Bonanza, Eldorado, and Hunker creeks, and 

 in some gulches across the divide tributary to Indian or Stewart 

 rivers. No gold in paying quantities had been found on the 



