292 GEOLOGY OF THE BLACK HILLS. 



caught in the crevices of the bed-rock, while the dirt was swept away. 

 Prospecting in one of these side gulches, about half a mile from the main 

 stream, the dirt from the crevices in the bed-rock was found to yield from 

 5 to 15 cents to the pan. The gold was in fine particles, associated with 

 small red garnet crystals, derived from the schists in the neighborhood of 

 Harney Peak. This ravine was excavated about 200 feet in depth through 

 the Red Beds. Its bottom was formed of a pavement of the upper layers 

 of the Carboniferous sandstone, while the hills on both sides were covered 

 with a deposit of slate and quartz gravel which had furnished the gold. 



A mile below, the small side gulches in the Red Beds afforded in places 

 5 to 1 cents to the pan of gold, but the supply of water at this time (July 

 20) was so small that the miners decided to give up prospecting in the 

 vicinity and abandon the diggings until the spring rains should fill the 

 water-holes and make it possible to work the pay dirt in rockers, if any 

 deposits rich enough for that purpose should be discovered. 



About five miles south of Whiskey Creek, at the edge of the plains, a 

 conglomerate 30 feet in thickness caps hills 100 to 150 feet in height, of the 

 soft sandstone of the Red Beds. The conglomerate is composed of granite, 

 quartz and slate bowlders, cemented by sand and lime into a looser-coher- 

 ing "cement," the lower layers of which contain quartz bowlders 1 to £ 

 feet in diameter. The small gulches in the vicinity are full of the quartz 

 gravel, resulting from the decomposition of the conglomerate, and undoubt • 

 edly contain gold; but unfortunately there was not a drop of water any- 

 where to be found in the neighborhood, and I was obliged to relinquish the 

 attempt to prospect them. Similar gravel deposits encircle the foothills, 

 crossing the valleys of French, Amphibious, and Minnekata Creeks, and 

 in this connection it would seem not inappropriate to give a tradition relat- 

 ing to the gold deposits in this portion of the Hills. 



Toussaint Kensler, a half-breed Indian, who had worked in the gold 

 mines of Alder Gulch, Montana, was confined in prison under sentence of 

 death for murder. Escaping, he was not heard from for a long time; when 

 he appeared at the agencies, having in his possession several goose-quills 

 filled with gold dust, and a fossil skull which he had found in the Bad Lands 

 on his way from the diggings he reported he had discovered. Being rear- 



