GEOGRAPHY DRAINAGE. 13 
is comparable in size with Chena River a few miles above the point where it is joined 
by West Fork. The stream has a width of 200 to 300 feet or more at ordinary stages 
of the water and is easily fordable on foot. The volume of water is at times large 
enough to permit prospectors to travel downstream in rafts from a point about 5 
miles above the sharp bend round the White Mountains, but on account of the shal- 
lowness of the water at the riffles considerable difficulty is probably experienced in 
this method of navigation. The creek meanders in a low-grade open valley. Above 
the bend the stream keeps close to the eastern base of the White Mountains and the 
valley is mostly on the eastern side where it extends back flatly nearly 2 miles to the 
base of the gradually sloping ridges. After rounding the southern termination of the 
White Mountains, however, the valley contracts to a width of about one-fourth of a 
mile, and flows for about 4 miles between the narrow ridge of the White Mountains 
and the ridge of the same height which extends northward from the plateau-like 
country to the southwest. Rounding the northern termination of this latter ridge the 
stream turns to the left in a northerly course and then to the northeast again to flow 
in wide meanders through a beautiful flat valley that is limited on the east by the 
broad slopes of the White Mountains and on the west by a steep ridge, which becomes 
more broken and more prominent toward the northeast, in harmony with the in- 
creasingly imposing character of the stream, which flows closely along its eastern 
base. 
Most of the tributaries of Beaver Creek in the portion of the valley traversed by 
the Survey party are small. Two tributaries drain the southern part of the White 
Mountains, and one of these has been called, for purposes of description, Fossil 
Creek, from the occurrence of fossiliferous limestone pebbles in its valley. The 
single narrow limestone ridge which terminates the White Mountains is accom- 
panied farther east by a parallel ridge of shorter southern extent. The view from 
this ridge shows between the two a low-grade valley 2 miles wide, extending north- 
eastward a distance of nearly 10 miles, drained byji stream which flows along the 
western side close to the base of the limestone ridge. From the base of the ridge on 
the east broad flat spurs separated by open depressions so shallow as hardly to be 
noticeable extend westward to the stream. On close examination the apparently 
continuous valley is seen to be composed of two parts — a lower, drained by a stream 
which seems disproportionately small for the size of the valley, and which has its 
rise in a few small stagnant ponds strung longitudinally along its course about 5 
miles from Beaver Creek, and an upper, drained by a stream of about the same 
length, which runs at first southwestward, in line with the stream of the lower por- 
tion of the valley, and then turns abruptly westward to flow -to Beaver Creek through 
a narrow r canyon which interrupts inconspicuously the continuity of the limestone 
ridge. 
This upper part of the valley has been reduced somewhat below the level of the 
lower part, but not to an extent appreciable in a general view of the valley. The 
case is one of stream diversion where a minor tributary of the Beaver has cut 
through the limestone ridge and diverted to itself the waters of the upper portion of 
a valley which used to drain southwestward along the eastern base of the limestone 
ridge all the w T ay to Beaver Creek. The diversion of the drainage from the upper 
valley has weakened the stream which occupies the lower portion of the valley, and 
its forceless character is indicated by the string of small ponds along its present 
headwaters. 
The tributaries of Beaver Creek from the east and south enter through open flat 
valleys. The valleys of tributaries from the west become more canyon-like toward 
the northeast, and there are none of importance until Victoria Creek is reached. 
This creek is reported to be 50 miles or more in length and to flow in its lower part 
in a comparatively narrow canyon. The branching headwaters are small streams, 
colored brown by vegetation, which flow in valleys, whose wide sweeping slopes are 
