5 GEOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY OF RAMPART REGION. 
hospitality. Alaska is a land of strong contrasts, and when, in the gloom of a rainy- 
night, amid the dripping brush and running waters of a sodden valley, the cheerful 
light of a miner's cabin draws the traveler to unaccustomed warmth and dryness, 
the heartiness of the welcome illustrates most forcibly the hospitable* spirit of the 
people in the midst of the ofttimes stern inclemency of the outer world. 
This bulletin is intended to supplement the results of recent work in the Forty- 
mile, Birch Creek, and Fairbanks regions « by a similar description of present condi- 
tions in the Rampart region and to include also a general description of the areas to 
the east, where the rocks of the Rampart region have their eastward extension. The 
writer has had the able assistance of Mr. Hess throughout the field and office work, 
and the results of the efforts of both in the field have been divided in the office for 
the sake of greater economy of time in the preparation of this report. Mr. Hess has 
described the gold placers, while the account of the general economic conditions, the 
geography and geology, and the supervision of the whole, have devolved upon 
the writer. His statement of the geology, which is merely preliminary, will be 
more fully developed in a description of the geology of the entire Yukon-Tanana 
country which is in preparation. 
GEOGRAPHY. 
GENERAL DESCRIPTION. 
There is a large area north and west of the Fairbanks region which is limited on 
the north and south by the converging courses of Yukon and Tanana rivers, respect- 
ively, and is terminated on the west by their confluence. It is shown upon the 
accompanying geologic map (PI. I), which indicates the main drainage lines and 
the route of the party from Chatanika River northward to the southern limit of 
Yukon Flats and thence southwest to the creeks of the Rampart region. This map, 
while only approximately correct, in so far as it is based upon the work of the party 
in which distances were estimated by pacing, directions by pocket compass, and 
altitudes by aneroid barometer, represents with fair accuracy the general relations 
of the narrow belt of country traversed to the larger area of which it forms a part. 
The surface of this area presents the same kind of features as those to the east, but 
there is considerable difference in their development, due partly to the narrowing 
space between the two rivers and partly to difference in the bed rock. There is the 
ridge and valley feature which occupies the greater part of the area and the flanking 
lowlands, on the north the Y T ukon Flats, and on the south the flat area drained by 
tributaries of the Tanana. 
The ridges show a general uniformity in height of 2,000 to 2,500 feet, but some 
rise conspicuously above their surroundings to an altitude of nearly 5,000 feet and 
others become broader and lower and merge into the valleys on each side. 
The divide between the drainage systems of Yukon and Tanana rivers throughout 
the Yukon-Tanana country has an extremely irregular course, due to the extensive 
ramifications of many streams among ridges of nearly equal height, and in this 
western part of the country in addition to the irregularity of direction there is a 
great variation in altitude. It is in places a prominent sharply defined ridge, while 
in other localities it becomes a low flat, separating with broad indefiniteness the 
waters which linger on its surface. 
The features of greatest prominence are the White Mountains, extending north- 
east and southwest through the eastern part of the area, and the high group of hills 
50 miles west of the White Mountains, in the vicinity of Rampart. The country 
between these two main features comprises many ridges, which toward the north 
are in general higher and break off with abruptness to Yukon Flats. The southern 
a Prindle, L.M.,Gold placers of the Fortyruile, Birch Creek, and Fairbanks regions, Alaska: Bull. 
U. S. Geol. Survey No. 251, 1905. 
