52 COAL KESOURCES OF THE YUKON. [no. 218. 
above, a powder house, and an office building at the mouth of the mine. 
No bunkers were used. The coal was piled on the river beach at the 
mouth of the mine and loaded on steamboats and barges with wheel- 
barrows. During one season the high water which comes at the break- 
ing up of the ice is reported to have carried away a large amount of 
coal mined during the winter. The dwellings and other buildings 
of the miners were of a temporary nature, and have nearly all been 
removed with the abandonment of the mine. These buildings were 
located about one-fourth of a mile up the river from the mine. The 
main gangway has a length of 600 feet. Above this nearly all the coal 
available in the present state of development of the mine has been 
taken out. 
Nulato coal bed. — Between the Pickart mine and Nulato it is reported 
that attempts have been made to open coal beds in several places," only 
one of which was examined by the writer. This seam is about a mile 
above the village of Nulato, and is contained in sandstones carrying 
fragmentary fossil leaves. The sandstone strikes N. 10° E. and dips 
40° NW., and about 1 mile to the southwest there are marine beds 
probably overlying it, from which a few fossils were collected, which 
seem to be of the same age as the marine beds stratigraphically below 
the Pickart coal. The stratigraphic section between this coal bed and 
the marine sandstone has not been minutely examined. If there are 
no faults or unexposed folds between these points, this coal bed is of 
Upper Cretaceous age. As far as the writer could determine, the 
marine sandstone rests on the fresh-water leaf- and coal-bearing beds. 
These observations are in accordance with those of Dr. Dall,^ who 
spent the winter of 1865-66 at Nulato, and thus had opportunity to 
study the section in detail. The coal seam is contained between sand- 
stone floor and roof, and has a thickness of 2J feet. The seam con- 
tains only about 6 inches of clean coal, the rest being made up of bone 
coal and some clay partings. No analysis of coal from this bed has 
been made. The writer saw some of the coal from the more impure 
part of the bed in use in a blacksmith's forge at Nulato. Except for 
the high percentage of ash, the coal seemed to be of good quality, 
comparing well with the coals along the Yukon. 
Bush mine. — This mine is situated on the right bank of the Yukon 
•i miles below Nulato. The mine opens on the slough behind the first 
island below Nulato. At this place there is a small bench about 50 
feet high, which has probably been formed by a slide from the main 
hill. Back of the bench is a well-marked escarpment, rising to a fiat- 
topped hill about 30 feet above. When the locality was visited the 
a Schrader, F. C, Reconnaissance along Chandlar and Koyukuk rivers, Alaska, in 1899: Twenty- 
first Ann. Rept. U. S. Geol. Survey, pt. 2, 1900, p. 485. 
&Dall, W. H:, and Harris, G. D., Correlation papers, Neocene: Bull. U. S. Geol. Survey No. 84, 1892, 
p. 247. 
