pbindlb.] FORTYMILE REGION. 51 
Stonehouse. Little could be done last season on account of the low 
water. 
The production from Chicken Creek and the benches during the 
season of 1903 was about $100,000. In July about 80 men were work- 
ing; earlier in the season there had been perhaps twice that number. 
North Fork of Forty mile. — North Fork meanders in a narrow 
rock-cut canyon about 600 feet below the floor of the old valley. The 
upstream part and the downstream part of a meander are frequently 
brought close together and are sometimes separated by only a narrow 
ridge of rock. In a river like the Mississippi cut-otfs are often 
formed at high water in such portions of the stream, but in a stream 
like North Fork, deeply sunk within hard rock, a cut-off can be 
formed by natural processes only when the stream wears away the 
narrow rock barrier. About 20 miles up North Fork from the junc- 
tion the two parts of a meander were separated from each other by a 
sharp ridge of rock over 100 feet high and only 100 feet wide at the 
base, while the distance around by stream w 7 as 2 L l miles. This locality, 
which is known as the" Kink," lies a few miles west of the area shown 
on the map (PI. VII). It was a comparatively easy matter to blast 
away the rock barrier, and thus form an artificial cut-off which drained 
the " Kink," with the exception of a few standing pools of water. The 
original width of the cut-off was only about 15 feet, and at first only a 
small quantity of water flowed through it, but after a few hours the 
main body rushed through and soon worked out a channel over 40 feet 
wide. The low gradient in the 2f miles around is now concentrated in 
a fall of about 17 feet in two portions, an upper one of about 15 feet 
and a lower one of about 2 feet. There is a deep hole below the falls 
where grayling swim in great numbers, unable to travel upstream by 
the customary route or to jump the falls. It is said, however, that the 
Jrock is rapidly wearing away, and that even now an occasional fish 
can make his way to the upper river. A view downstream through 
the cut-off and another showing the drained bed of the river are 
shown in PI. X, .1 and B. 
The bed rock at the cut-off is quartz-biotite-garnet-schist, with a 
northwest strike and a northeast dip of 45°. Half a mile to the 
west occur large outcrops of thin-bedded and massive crystalline 
limestones with a similar strike and dip. These outcrop on the east 
side of the hill to the west of North Fork, and the schists occur 
again on Hutchinson Creek at the saw mill. The same formation of 
schists and limestones, which is found for several miles to the north 
and south of North Fork, is a continuation of the formation occurring 
On the lower Fortymile at Bonanza liar, Franklin Creek, Wade Creek, 
and other gold-producing areas. About half a mile above the Kink 
the schists are cut by a dike of olivine-basalt about 100 feet thick, and 
