168 ALASKA AND ITS MINERAL RESOURCES 



In this region gold has been found extensively along the 

 Koyukuk, and most abundantly, as already mentioned, where 

 the valley cuts through conglomerates supposed to belong to the 

 Kenai series. This is at the forks, about 300 miles above the 

 mouth, below which the country is low and swampy ; above 

 the forks the mountains close in and the sides of the valleys be- 

 come precipitous. The gold in the bars is said to be coarse, sug- 

 gesting nearness to the source, and has yielded as much as $100 

 per day by use of the rocker. Prospectors are said to have ex- 

 plored to considerable distances above the forks, up to 500 miles 

 from the mouth, and to have recognized rocks similar to those 

 of the Birch creek and Fortymile districts. This, if true, is im- 

 portant as an indication of still further extensions of the area of 

 exposures of the older gold-bearing rocks. 



Further east, at the head of Dall river, low, broken hills, ap- 

 parently composed of schists and quartzose rocks, extend north- 

 eastward to the Romanzof mountains. The latter are snow- 

 covered in summer, and form the northern boundary of a low 

 plain that lies to the north of Porcupine river ; these mountains 

 are likewise said to be made up of metamorphic schist and 

 quartzites. 



Still further northwest, in the country to the northeast of 

 Kotzebue sound, gold has been reported from the Kowak and 

 Noatak rivers. It is possible that the older series of rocks is ex- 

 posed in the mountains of this region, but more probable that 

 the gold is derived from the conglomerates of the Mission creek 

 series, which, as already shown, afford gold on Napoleon creek 

 and in the Mission creek district. 



Gold is also reported by prospectors from a belt of country 

 which is generally parallel to the known gold belt, but set off to 

 the southwest and which corresponds to the supposed south- 

 western flank of the granite backbone. Such discoveries have 

 been reported from Fish creek, which flows into Norton sound 

 north of St Michael, and from the upper Kuskokwim river, which 

 flows into Bering sea. On the Sushitna river, which flows into 

 Cook inlet, W. A. Dickey reports colors of fine gold in the sands 

 all along the stream, and platinum on the upper river, where 

 veins of white quartz carrying gold, silver, and copper were found 

 in slates associated with granite and porphyry. Gold and copper 

 have been reported by various persons from the region about the 

 sources of the Copper and White rivers. It is thus evident that 

 the elevated region along the heads of these various streams, and 



