RAINY HOLLOW DISTRICT. 27 
Bench deposits. — No extensive deposits have been found in the 
tributary creeks, but-along Salmon River between Nugget and Cotton- 
wood creeks is a bench deposit, probably marking a former river level, 
which has an average width of 1,500 feet and is from 20 to 40 feet 
above the present river. The greater part of the bench has been 
located, and plans are being made to work it by drifts and raises, 
using underground sluices supplied with water from Nugget Creek. 
Near Nugget Creek the bed of Salmon River, over which the river 
flows in many channels, is a mile in width. Colors of gold may be 
obtained along this gravel deposit from a point a mile below Nugget 
Creek to above Cottonwood Creek. Fif ty or more claims were staked 
last summer (1903) on these river bars, and an attempt will be made next 
season to work parts of the extensive deposit by dredges. 
RALJSTY HOLLOW DISTRICT. 
It was no part of the purpose of the present investigation to study 
the copper deposits of Rainy Hollow, but as opportunity was offered 
a brief visit was made to this district, which has since been included 
in British Columbia by the newly established boundary line. 
Rainy Hollow is the name given to the basin at the head of Klehini 
River, where the only lode prospecting in the Chilkat drainage has 
been done. The ores are copper and silver, very little gold having 
been found. The valley gradually ascend to dome-shaped hills, 
covered on the lower levels with a luxuriant growth of small trees 
and plants, but on the upper levels almost barren of vegetation. 
The country rock consists of very much disturbed black slates and 
limestones, crosscut by greenstone and porphyry dikes. 
There are several well-defined ledges, striking mainly north and south. 
Those investigated were nearly vertical contact leads, lying between a 
limestone and an intrusive greenstone. They were composed chiefly of 
pyrrhotite, chalcopyrite, galena, and sphalerite, with quartz as gangue 
mineral. The Custer ledge, averaging 3 feet in width, can be fol- 
lowed for 2 miles over the mountain ridge; and the parallel Hart- 
ford ledge, separated from it by a greenstone dike 80 feet wide, 
may be traced nearly as far, although it is much more broken and 
faulted. The present surface ores are the richer sulphides of copper. 
No iron capping occurs over the veins, and oxides and carbonates of 
copper are not often found, and where observed are mere films, obvi- 
ously due to surface weathering. 
About 2 miles west of the Custer and Hartford ledges are some 
others less well defined and little developed. They are, however, 
richer in copper and silver, and are reported to be of greater value 
than either of the first mentioned, which can be of no economic value 
until transportation facilities are greatly bettered. 
