collier.] LODES ON LOST RIVER. 17 
the localites from which prospectors have reported " ledge tin" will 
be described under the headings " Brooks Mountain," " Ear Moan- 
tain," " Hot Springs," ; 'Asses Ears," and two other localities worthy 
of investigation will be mentioned under the headings " Diomede 
Islands" and u Don River." 
LOCALITIES WHERE LODE TIN HAS BEEN FOUND. 
LOST RIVER. 
Lost River enters Bering Sea at a point about 15 miles southeast of 
York, 25 miles west of Teller, a town on Port Clarence, and 10 miles 
northwest of Point Spencer, at the entrance to Port Clarence. A view 
of the valley of this river, taken from the coast, is shown on PL III. 
The river has a length of about 10 miles and drains the central part of 
the York Mountains. The mountains constitute a nearly circular area 
of rugged land forms, about 15 miles in diameter. The summits rise 
to a general level of about 2,500 feet, and, as noted, reach a culmination 
of 2,900 feet in Brooks Mountain, near the north side of the area, 
which is the highest point in the northern part of Seward Peninsula. 
Along the southern edge of this mountain mass there is a well-defined 
bench from one-half mile to 4 miles wide. This bench was cut from 
the rocks by wave action and then raised, but so unequally that at the 
mouth of Lost River it has an elevation of 600 feet, while eastward it 
gradually declines until at Port Clarence it is practically at sea level. 
The writer has referred to this feature in a previous paper as the 
Cape York bench." It was produced during the same period of erosion 
as the York Plateau. 
On the seaward side the Cape York bench is bounded by steep 
bluffs, which at places front directly on Bering Sea (see fig. 1) and at 
other points rise from a lower and younger bench nearly at sea level. 
This lower and newer plane is well developed from the mouth of Lost 
River eastward to Port Clarence, and has a width varying from one- 
half mile to 3 or 4 miles. It is, in part, a rock bench similar to the 
Cape York bench, and, in part, a gravel-built coastal plane. Imme- 
diately north of Port Clarence the lower coastal plane is fringed by a 
wide lagoon, cut off from Port Clarence by a sand spit. 
The York Mountains are generally devoid of the tundra vegeta- 
tion which covers so much of the Seward Peninsula; and along Lost 
River, from the coast to the tin deposits, can be found an exception- 
ally good roadbed for this part of Alaska. For one traveling on foot 
it is as firm as an ordinary macadamized road, and owing to the ea^e 
with which the trip up the river is made the distances are likely to be 
underestimated by persons who have traveled in other parts of Seward 
a Collier, A. J., A reconnaissance of the northwestern portion of Seward Peninsula, Alaska: Prof. 
Paper U. S. Geol. Survey No. 2, 1902, p. 37. 
Bull. 229—04 2 
