COPPER DEPOSITS OF THE MOUNT WRANGELL REGION, ALASKA. 
By Walter C. Mendenhall and Frank C. Schrader. 
GEOGRAPHY AND EXPLORATIONS. 
Near the southeast corner of the mainland mass of Alaska, very 
near the intersection of parallel 62° north latitude -and meridian 144° 
west longitude, stands Mount Wrangell, 14,000 feet high, an active 
volcano, and in many respects the most impressive, although not the 
highest, peak of the group to which its name is given. This group, a 
complex pile of volcanic material, with half a dozen or more great 
summits over 12,000 feet in height, occupies the angle between two 
diverging branches of the St. Elias Range. 
The drainage of a part of its northern and of all its western and 
southern slopes is carried to the Pacific by the Copper River, while 
White River and the two main branches of the Tanana, called the 
Nabesna and the Chisana, rise on the north slope east of the Copper 
and flow by way of the Yukon into Bering Sea. 
In the drainage basins of the upper portions of these streams, on 
both sides of the range, it has been known for many years that native 
copper exists. Yukon and White River Indians used it in the interior 
in the earlier days for knives and bullets, and Copper River natives 
exhibited similar specimens at the coastal trading stations long ago. 
Lieutenant Allen in 1885 secured specimens of bornite from Chief 
Nicolai at Taral, but most of the knowledge possessed by white men 
concerning these occurrences has been secured since 1898, when they 
first entered the region in force. Since then prospectors have explored 
rather thoroughly the southern field, which includes the basins of the 
Chitina and the Kotsina, large eastern branches of Copper River. 
As a result of this exploration, they have located maii}^ claims in this 
region and have done a little development work. At the same time 
somewhat less thorough prospecting has been carried on in the more 
distant and less accessible region north of the Wrangell Mountains, 
but thus far the search for promising copper deposits has been less 
successful there. 
In 1801 Dr. C. Willard Hayes, a while en route with Lieut. Frederick 
Schwatka from Fort Selkirk to the coast at the mouth of Copper River, 
visited the Kletsan Creek deposits on the upper White River. In 
o An expedition through the Yukon district: Nat. Geog. Mag., Vol. IV., pp. 117-162. 
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