" STAND-OFF » BAR. 251 



ness, could be seen capping the ledge on the hill near the creek, but on pan- 

 ning it failed to give a trace of gold. Near my camp a small sluggish 

 branch entered the creek from the south, and about half a mile above its 

 mouth a prospecting hole was sunk in the flat. After passing through about 

 6 feet of soil, gravel, and bowlders, a black, peaty muck was encountered 

 and penetrated a depth of 7 feet, when the water, bursting in, flooded the 

 hole, and a pole 5 feet long was easily thrust down through the muck in 

 the bottom of the shaft, but failed to reach any compact layer of gravel. 



A similar experience was the result of a hole put down by "Califor- 

 nia Joe" on his claim below camp. After passing through 6 feet of large 

 bowlders and compact gravel a deposit of black muck was struck, and 

 finally an old beaver dam, composed of sticks and mud, was passed through, 

 resting on another layer of muck, at which point the work was stopped by 

 the water. The valley below the Mammoth ledge was contracted in width, 

 and appeared to have been gradually filled up since it had been excavated. 

 Bed-rock was reached in only two places, although a number of shafts were 

 sunk by the miners, and in these cases the rock was hard and the gravel 

 poor in gold. 



The hills bordering the stream were composed of thick strata of mas- 

 sive quartzite upturned on edge, and the narrowing of the valley was doubt- 

 less due to the hardness of this belt of rocks, resisting denudation and the 

 forces which excavated it Above the original discovery for nearly five miles 

 the valley was broad and open, with rolling and broken hills of siliceous 

 and clay slates, with occasional belts of quartzite. Here the gravel deposits 

 were very broad and extensive ; flats, in places a quarter of a mile wide, 

 extended along the banks of the creek, while elevated bars were to be found 

 at the bends of the stream and sides of the valley, which promised to be 

 very valuable. One of the most noted of these older deposits of the stream, 

 discovered the past season, was the celebrated " Stand-off Bar," concern- 

 ing the ownership of which there promised at one time to be a serious diffi- 

 culty, that was only avoided by the determination of its discoverers to 

 "stand-off" all intruders. John W. Allen, the present recorder of the dis- 

 trict, in a letter to the Chicago Inter-Ocean, thus describes .this deposit, 

 which proved to be so rich that the owners caved in the drift on leaving the 



