mendenhalk] CHISTOCHINA GOLD FIELD, ALASKA. 75 
It is even more significant that the sources of the gold-bearing 
creeks are all within an area whose extent coincides with a region of 
local metamorphism in the Permian shales, and that no other meta- 
morphosed areas of these beds and no other gold districts within 
them are known. Where they have been metamorphosed an incipient 
cleavage is developed and the shales carry a few narrow quartz 
stringers. It is believed that the flat, smooth character of much of 
the gold is sufficiently accounted for by its origin in these shales and 
by its purity and consequent softness, which lead to rapid smoothing 
and polishing with but little transportation. 
It is therefore concluded that the gold originates in these Permian 
beds, and that in its genesis it is related to the local metamorphism 
which they have suffered. It is evidently post-Permian in age, and 
since Eocene beds deposited unconformably upon the Permian are 
but little folded and wholly unmetamorphosed, it is probably also 
pre-Eocene. 
